


just be glad you'll smile again

by RowboatCop



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sex in Final Chapter, F/M, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Skye is an unrepentant socialist, Skye is the best, Slow Build, Ward is a Nazi, and Coulson knows it, background Simmons/Triplett, mentions of canon May/Ward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-02-09 03:24:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 33,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1967157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Coulson (re)discovers the best part of himself, in large part because of the influence of Skye. (Or, missing Skoulson scenes and Coulson’s thoughts, done in snippets of each episode.)</p><p>Title is from Laura Marling's “Failure” (And if it comes to the rain, just be glad you'll smile again/ 'Cause so many don't, and so many go unnamed) because New!Coulson gets a second chance at not being one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> Scenes take place before the Skye-napping and then after the main action of the episode (as Coulson and Skye are speeding away in Lola).

“You’re listening to that bullshit again?”

Coulson looks up from his laptop, which is streaming a podcast from the Rising Tide website, and raises a wry eyebrow at Ward’s intrusion. The specialist _almost_ blushes under the scrutiny.

“...sir?”

Coulson’s abdomen contracts once in almost-laughter, but instead of hitting pause, he turns up the volume and gestures for Ward to sit down.

“...a universal human right. Your name implies protection, but what, exactly, are you protecting us from? The truth? _Super dangerous_ freedom?” Coulson smiles at her sarcasm, and watches Ward roll his eyes. “Or maybe the better question is, _who_ are you protecting? Because as long as you strive to keep us ignorant, you’re ensuring the continuation of a global economic order that holds onto power by keeping the majority of the people in the dark both figuratively and literally.”

Coulson hits pause and looks up at Ward, who is _still_ rolling his eyes.

“These people are dangerous,” Ward offers, and Coulson sighs.

“These people have some valid points,” he suggests instead.

“How can you even consider that? You know as well as I do that if one fraction of what SHIELD knows got out, it could bring about the end of the world.”

“That’s true enough.”

“We need to _take out_ groups like this one that are trying to find out SHIELD’s secrets under the idea that it’s the common good.” He scoffs particularly loudly on the words _common good_.

“I hardly think taking out groups like this would do much for SHIELD’s image, Agent Ward.”

“With all due respect, sir...who cares? I’m not here to worry about SHIELD’s image, I’m here to…”

“To what?”

“Well, you haven’t exactly told me, yet.”

“This woman,” Coulson says pointing at his laptop, looking at the podcast app as though it somehow represents a human figure.

“What about her?”

“We need to talk to her. Fitz has an IP address that proves she’s made contact with the hooded hero.”

“So we bring her in for interrogation?”

“Something like that.” Coulson smiles at Ward and is sort of pleased with the wary look he gets in return.

He looks back to his laptop, and Ward takes it as the dismissal it is meant to be.

The truth is that he has taken a liking to this woman before even meeting her. She’s misguided, he believes, but hardly amoral, and hardly a danger. What he sees, or at least what he thinks he sees, in the heart and soul of her — this woman he has been listening to for several hours now — is someone who wants to help people. 

And that means that he sees himself in her. He remembers that, once upon a time, helping people was his goal. And once upon a time, Nick Fury took him aside from a group of potential law enforcement recruits in his high school gym and told him that SHIELD, in its heart and soul, stands for protection. It stands for helping people. 

So, yes, he does think that this woman, writing and ranting political screeds, may be misguided about secrets and suits and shadowy government organizations.

But she has a good heart, and before he even meets her he wants her to see that SHIELD can help people.

And most of all, though he doesn't consciously admit it to himself, he wants this woman, who seems so like some idealized version of who he used to imagine being, to see that he’s not bad at all.

 

***

 

The woman in question turns out to be smarter than he had realized. He doesn’t really understand how smart she is, only that FitzSimmons are impressed, which he thinks means she’s really, really smart.

She also turns out to be significantly younger than he had guessed.

In a way, it makes the idealism — free information, collective action — make more sense because god knows few enough people make it out of their twenties with that kind of idealism in place. He’s only known her for half an hour, preened slightly at her approval of his methods, before he realizes that he wants her on his team. He’d like to see her learn a little more about the way the world _really_   works, to temper her somewhat naive idealism, but he’d also also like to see her not losing those ideals. It’s a fine line to balance, he thinks, and one that he hasn’t exactly figured out, yet.

And so even as he barely knows her, even as his two most senior operatives are wary of her, he wants to protect the flicker of himself he recognizes in her (the one that burned out years before New York). And he wants his team — his little island of SHIELD without the bureaucratic red tape — to do the kind of good that made her so quick to join up.

But it’s important (even though he won’t really realize it until later) that before the urge to help her came the urge to impress her. (Because, it turns out, she doesn’t actually need much help. He’s not sure anything could burn out the goodness, the _rightness_ , he sees in her.)

So, he sets out to impress her without fully realizing that’s what he’s doing. Which is probably why he takes such immense joy in showing off Lola, slipping on his sunglasses as she shrieks at his fast acceleration.

“Holy Crap, I am in a flying Corvette.”

“How’s this for something new?” He raises his eyebrows at her, looking at her over the top of his sunglasses in a gesture that he _knows_ looks too much like flirting, but she doesn’t seem bothered. In fact, she giggles and strokes her hand across the outside of the car.

“Impressive.” She flirts right back. He likes that about her. “So, if I stay on, do I get to drive her?”

“Not a chance,” he answers, smirking.

Her lips curve into something between a pout and a grin, and he turns his eyes forward to hide his own smile.

The air changes as her smile fades to a serious expression, and he watches out of his peripheral vision as she considers things.

“Why did you join SHIELD?” She asks the question seriously; he can see a small wrinkle in the middle of her forehead as she examines his profile.

“To help people,” he answers honestly.

“People like Mike Peterson and his son?”

“Yes.” He pauses. “Others, too. With the Avengers, I got to help save the world.”

“You were in New York?”

“Sort of.”

“So, like, you know what _really_ happened.”

“I was incapacitated for much of it,” he replies wryly, though the wrinkle on her forehead gets deeper and he remembers that she doesn’t understand the reference. “But yes, I know. So do you.”

“I know there were aliens, but I don’t know _why_ there were aliens. I mean, I refuse to believe it was random.”

“You’re right; it wasn’t random.”

“Did SHIELD do something to...provoke it?”

He’s quiet for too long, and he can see her smile in his peripheral vision.

“They did, didn’t they? I _so_ called it.”

He’s glad that she isn’t grouping him in with SHIELD right now, glad that he has time to get her adjusted to the Bus before approaching SHIELD in a wider way.

The truth is that he’s never been able to comfort himself after Director Fury’s attempts to harness the Tesseract against his better judgment. He's never been comfortable with how quickly he gave up his own fight about it, either. (Much of his hope for The Avengers Initiative had been making Phase II of the Tesseract Project unnecessary, but he realizes now that he had needed something more than optimism to fight that battle.) He can see some of the points Fury made to defend his capitulation — especially after their first contact with Asgardians — but he’s still not past his anger that such dangerous technology was used instead of destroyed. _Coulson himself_ was one of the casualties of that decision.

“The Director of Shield was attempting to use alien technology to create unlimited power.”

“So, like, the potential to end reliance on oil?”

“Yes." He pauses, almost not wanting her to know about Phase II. "But there was a lot more conversation about using it as potential defense against future alien attack.”

There’s a long moment of quiet as she examines him again, and he thinks he’s going to blush if this pretty girl keeps _looking_ at him so hard.

“But you disagreed with that decision.”

“Yes. It was dangerous. Very dangerous. What happened in New York — the use of the energy source allowed Loki to get to Earth — wasn’t even the worst of the possible dangers.”

She nods in understanding.

“Unlimited sustainable energy would save a lot of lives, but it doesn’t do much good if everyone dies before you harness it.”

“Pretty much.”

“So you deal with this all the time, then. You have big ideas and alien technology and you try to figure out how to do the best things for the entire world.”

“It’s a big job.”

“But is that fair? I mean...is it fair that these big decisions happen in back rooms without any of us knowing about it?”

“Maybe not,” he agrees. “But would it be safe to talk about it in an open forum? You know who last had their hands on that power?”

“Who?”

“The Nazis.”

Her mouth drops open slightly and her eyes widen.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So, the craziest show on earth also involves preventing the rise of more Nazis?”

“Perhaps.”

“I’m down with that,” Skye answers after a pensive moment. She smiles and relaxes back in her seat, and he relaxes, too.

He thinks she gets it, at least a little: SHIELD isn’t perfect, but it’s doing the best it can to do good. Or, at least, he’s doing the best he can to do good. 


	2. 0-8-4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson knows he made the right call on Skye. Sort of a throw-away chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene takes place at the end of the episode.

In Peru, Skye impresses him with her knowledge of local politics and her primary inclination to make sure the locals are safe. But one of the first things he knows she’s going to have to understand is that freedom of information is a fine ideal, but sometimes secrecy is part of helping others. He’s not exactly sure whether he wants to her to understand that for herself or whether he needs someone like her — someone with uncompromised ideals — to understand and approve of his methods. He can’t help but feel that he would have seen Skye very differently before New York; he certainly wouldn’t have sought her approval.

(That thought — the wonder at his reaction to this girl — might be what starts a niggling worry in the back of his head about what _really_ happened after his death.)

Still, though, the point at which he knows he made the right call on her isn’t when she’s integral to the team’s plan to save his ass (although that doesn’t surprise him) and it isn’t when she teases him later about his relationship with Reyes (although he likes that — he likes having someone on board who sees him as teasable). The point at which he knows he made the right call is when he picks up a whole, unshattered glass from the floor and sets it on the bar, and she places a coaster under it, shooting him a little smirk.

He thinks that for all her history — and it’s the fact that she has _literally_ no record to speak of that convinces him she’s probably intimately familiar with jail cells and probation — Skye understands the rules. He thinks she understands when to break them and when to keep them up. Either choice, he thinks, could be the right call in the right situation, and it comforts him that someone on board the Bus is going to understand that — that the right call for morality or just morale could swing either direction. (And it could also involve blowing a hole in the Bus.) Hell, he’s not sure _he_ has fully absorbed that lesson, yet.

He notices when she hangs back from the group as they watch the Slingshot rocket take off, doing something on her phone. When it seems like she’s done, he approaches her, standing next to her a few feet back from the rest of the team.

“Everything alright?”

“Yup.” She nods and slides the phone into her jeans.

They stand quietly next to each other and watch the team watch the rocket.

“I’m sorry I blew up your plane.”

He smiles at that.

“I thought it was a group decision?”

“It was, sort of. But I bet we could have thought of another way.”

“If there was another way, someone would have thought of it,” he offers. “You don’t have to feel bad about it, Skye. It was good thinking, and it saved everyone’s lives.”

“That was more...everyone else, really.”

“No, it was the team. Everyone doing their part. You did a good job.”

She smiles at him, more brightly than she probably should for such relatively faint praise, and he smiles back.

“Thanks.” She seems to relax next to him as they listen to FitzSimmons calculate thrust speeds and orbital patterns like a drinking game. “I’m glad it’s getting destroyed. I feel better with weapons like that not existing, you know?”

“I really do.”

She belongs on his plane and on his team, but he’s not sure _she_ knows that, yet. He knows she’s keeping secrets — he’s really not a fool, despite what Ward and May seem to think of him — but he also knows that she’s not going to betray them, not _really_. Even if she’s not sure of SHIELD, yet, he’s confident that she understands that betraying him would be the opposite of helping people, and he just _knows_ that she wouldn’t do that.

At the same time, though, he is anxious for her to be ready to really commit; to figure out that this is where she needs to be. 


	3. The Asset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trust-building happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene takes place after Ward and Coulson's talk about Skye but before the training session where Ward actually makes progress with her.

He’s nervous about sending her into Quinn’s villa in Malta, more nervous than he feels he can let on to Ward, but it’s not because of her loyalty. The thing about Skye, he thinks, is that she’s easy to read as long as you understand that at the core of her is a finely tuned moral compass. Yes, he _does_ foresee her having a moment when Quinn’s status as an internationally recognized good guy will make her wonder if she doesn’t belong in his camp instead of SHIELD’s. But he’s also certain that she won’t side with a man who kidnapped someone, and he’s certain that Quinn’s libertarian leanings don’t actually line up that well with her obviously socialist ones.

When Ward confesses what a hard time he’s having reaching her, Coulson half considers taking over some of her training himself, even though he’s long since given up taking on the SO role. He’s certain that, actually, it would be easy with Skye. It’s just a matter of showing her that she’s fighting with the good guys — that’s all she’s really going to need to commit. And it’s not that he thinks Ward isn’t one of the good guys, but he keeps thinking back to Maria Hill’s terrible drawing of a porcupine.

When it comes down to it, though, Coulson wants to have faith in everyone on his team, and that includes faith that Ward will figure out how to be a good SO. So he does what he thinks he needs to do — he puts faith where he feels faith is due, and he tries to show the amount of support he thinks his team needs.

“Hi,” he greets her. She’s sitting alone on one of the couches in the common area, chin resting on her knees, deep in thought. He knows she hasn’t seen her SO since his own chat with Ward, and his goal is to keep wheels turning.

“Hi,” she answers, smiling weakly. He can read her nervousness clearly.

“You’re going to do fine in there,” he begins, before glancing around the room. He knows it’s empty, but he’s almost reminding her that they have something resembling privacy. “May I sit down?” He gestures to the seat next to hers.

“Sure. You’re the boss.”

He sits and watches her closely for almost a minute, waiting for her to come out and tell him something — some problem he can fix, some area where she’s unsure. She stays silent, though, and he wonders if that’s bravery or fear.

“Do you feel good about the training you’ve been doing with Ward?”

She just looks at him guiltily.

“He told you I’m not very good, didn’t he? I’m sorry. I just…”

“It’s okay. You’re new at it.” He shrugs. “Both you _and_ Ward are new at it, but you’re both competent people. I think you’ll figure it out.”

“Just not quite in time for tomorrow?”

“In a perfect world, this mission would be coming after you’d had a lot more than one week of physical training,” he admits.

“Everyone seems to think I was stupid to volunteer.”

“Everyone seems to think I was stupid to accept,” he counters, and she laughs, a hollow, quiet sound in the back of her throat.

“Is this a mistake?”

“It depends on your definition of a mistake. Because, yes, there’s a good chance you’ll be in danger. But I also believe you can handle yourself.”

“Ward doesn’t think I can handle myself.”

“Ward just has a narrow definition of what that means. For him, it’s knowing the protocol…”

“...and also how he'd take down everyone in the room, right?”

Coulson smiles.

“Perhaps. But for those of us who do more working with people and less with tactics and spying, handling ourselves means having a whole bag of tricks. Which I think you do.”

“What makes you think that?” She smiles at him, somewhere between flattered and intrigued.

“Besides the hacking?” He pauses, sizing her up. “You survived. You survived on your own for a long time.”

“So you read about my great escape from the orphanage?” Her voice is sarcastic; the current of _hurt_ about her past is tucked away, but he can still hear it if he listens to her sometimes.

“What there was to read,” he answers, some humor in his voice. “ _You_ did that, Skye. You did that, and you erased it, and you educated yourself with very little in the way of help or resources. The reason I invited you here is because I think that with _our_ resources, you could do some pretty amazing things.”

“It’s hard.” She swallows, as though she might cry, and Coulson maintains his neutral expression carefully. “I never let myself get too attached to anywhere or anyone, and…”

“And now Ward is telling you that you need a defining moment and you need to commit.”

“Don’t I?”

“Honestly?” He pauses, shoring up his words. “If I were in your place, I wouldn’t be in a rush to commit before I was sure everyone was committed to me.”

He can see the words hit their mark, and she swipes fingers under her eyes, holding back tears.

“And I’ve been trying to show you that I am committed to you. That _we_ are committed to you,” he continues. “But it will take time, as it should. And in the meantime…”

“I still want to go on the mission,” she tells him, and he smiles.

“That’s good. Because the truth is that we need you. I think the others are only just realizing what an asset you can be to the team.”

“But you already know?”

“I invited you on board, didn’t I?”

She smiles at that, and he returns it before standing and walking back to the stairs.

“Oh, and Skye?” He turns to face her and watches her swivel her head on the couch. “Let Ward in on some of this, okay? I know he’s prickly, but I think he’ll be a better SO if you let him see what makes you tick.”

Her smile turns silly at his description of Ward as prickly, and he thinks that some day he should show her Hill’s drawing of the little piece of poo.

And of course she impresses him on her mission, and of course he lets her know. And slowly, he thinks, a trust is being built between them.


	4. Eye Spye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson and Skye spend more time in the back of the SUV. (Is there a way to make that not sound shippy?) Bonding happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place after the action of the episode -- continuation of the scene.

Skye tells him, unequivocally, that she trusts his judgement and that Akela deserves a second chance if he thinks she does, and...it’s astounding then how good it feels. He’s not entirely sure _which_ part of it feels good — if it’s just having someone decide to be wholly in his court, or if it matters that it’s Skye, whose opinion of right and wrong matters to him, perhaps more than it should.

It’s the first time that it fully, consciously occurs to him that his desire for Skye’s approval is about more than making her feel at home, and has a lot more to do with him than with her.

When he seeks her out in the back of the SUV, he’s not exactly sure why. He certainly hasn’t taken time to sit down with FitzSimmons or Ward for conversations about more than mission work. It seems like the right thing to do, though, which lines up nicely with the fact that he wants to spend more time with her.

"Are you still needing your 'you time'?"

"There's always room for AC," she answers, shooting him a flirty smile. "Slide on in."

It almost makes him blush, and Coulson has never been a man who blushes easily. Or at all. 

"What's wrong with Agent Coulson? Or just Coulson?" He puts on a stern face, but very purposefully stops short of ordering her to call him by a more official name. He _likes_ that she flirts with him; likes the way she flirts with him, too. 

"Nothing, I guess. AC's just way cooler. 'Cuz you are. Cool. Not many people would have made that call. Gave Amador a second chance."

She calls him cool with a quiet sincerity that touches him, and he relaxes against the seat as she tells him that she likes it in the SUV because it reminds her of her van. Except that it’s more peaceful here. Not a lot of people would see SHIELD as peaceful, but he really gets it. The Bus is like that for him, but especially the Bus as it is full of people who will have his back...people he can trust.

He _will_  admit that the comfortable darkness of the SUV has its charm. It feels more private, more isolated, than anywhere else on the Bus, and if there's a momentary flare of worry that he shouldn't be sharing this intimate space with a subordinate, he covers over it and just enjoys her company.  

“Peaceful's good,” he agrees. There’s a long silence between them as they enjoy the peace. “How long did you live out of your van?” He asks the question openly, seeking information and trying to be clear that he’s not offering pity or judgement.

“The van was actually a step up for me,” she says, and he swallows down any comment because she’s not asking for pity, she’s just...talking. “I bought it two years ago with money I won from Tony Stark.”

He shoots her an incredulous look.

“Well, it was Stark Industries, anyways." That doesn't really make it any more believable. "They weren’t very clear about what they were doing, except that there was something going online and it was a potential threat to national security.” She pauses thoughtfully. “You know, up until really recently I never would have done anything to help him. I still wouldn’t help most companies, but…”

“Stark is trying to do right by everyone,” Coulson offers, and she nods.

“He’s freaking Iron Man, right?”

Coulson chuckles and remembers Ward accusing her of being an Iron Man fangirl; Skye didn’t exactly say she wasn’t. His story — evil businessman turned genuine philanthropist — must appeal.

“Anyways, they hold contests sometimes...it’s basically crowdsourcing, you know? Get as many people to attack their system as many ways as possible, shore it up against every kind of vulnerability. And every time you get in, they give you money.”

“So it’s a whitehat thing, huh?”

She’s silent for a the space of several thoughtful breaths.

“You know, AC, at one time I would have said that everything I’ve done has been whitehat stuff. Maybe that’s a little naive, though.”

“You’re learning gray areas,” he offers. “Times when freedom of information might do more harm than good.”

“That’s true,” she acknowledges.

“But that doesn’t negate the good intentions of what you were doing before.”

“Hmm,” she sort of agrees. “What do you know about what I was doing before?” It could be a challenge, but it just sounds thoughtful, inquisitive.

“I listened to some of your podcasts. Read some of your writing. You know we were tracking you before we found you.”

“And what did you think?" She turns towards him, suddenly more excited by the conversation. "I mean, I know Ward basically wrote me off as an anarchist, and he gets really touchy about me calling the control of information a form of violence. But one of the reasons I joined the Rising Tide is because information _is_ our economy, now. Controlling information is controlling capital.”

“Ward is uncomfortable with Marxism,” Coulson acknowledges. “He spent a lot of time in Russia, you know. And not with the best people.”

“Yeah, but to hear him tell it, there’s no difference between a desire to see Peruvian rebels come together to take back their corrupt _fascist_ government — and we saw first hand _just_ how corrupt that government really was — and...casual murder.”

“A lot of people in SHIELD are conditioned to believe that there’s more to the government side of things, and that uprisings are rarely productive.”

“Do you think that way?”

“No,” he answers, shrugging.

She nods, and he watches her face closely.

“You asked me what I thought of your work. I thought that it was naive, overly idealistic. I also thought that you were clearly smart, well-informed, and that you had a strong moral compass.”

She smiles at that, small at first and then growing into a larger grin before her face goes pensive.

“And you still think all those things, right?”

He would think she was kidding if not for the raw, painful honesty in her eyes.

“You’re worried that as I get to know you, I’ll like you less?”

“That’s what always used to happen,” she answers, voice barely above a whisper.

He nods, once, unused to Skye showing such intense vulnerability even though he saw a taste of it before her mission at Quinn’s villa. It comes through in small glimpses like this one, and it’s sort of terrifying, but endearing.

“When I said earlier that you and Akela were nothing alike, what I should have said was that in many ways you _are_ alike. You’re both smart and talented, and neither one of you realized the extent of your potential. But…” He pauses, watching her face closely for a moment. “You told me when you came aboard that you weren’t a team player. But that’s not really true. You place value on the potential of working as a part of something. That’s important. Director Fury always used to say that we unlock our true potential when we realize we can do more working as a part of something than working alone. And I think you already know that. Your belief in that kind of community has translated well to teamwork. It makes you valuable, and it makes you trustworthy.”

He lays his head back on the seat, leaving her without an audience for the range of emotions passing over her face while he looks at the ceiling. He knows she’s still hiding something, but it feel small to him. It is less important than the fact that she clearly belongs here.

“You felt like you failed with her, is that right?”

He’s still not looking at her, but he can tell from the soft, tentative quality of her voice that she wasn’t intending to cause the lance of guilt that burns through his stomach.

“Yes,” he answers.

“Is that why you didn’t volunteer to be my SO? Because you felt responsible for her maybe betraying SHIELD? Which, we know now that she didn’t even do?”

He smirks at that, the reminder that he really has nothing to feel guilty about.

“Maybe so. But I was...too hard on her. I demanded too much. I didn’t give her the space to figure things out for herself.”

“I don’t get that, like, at all. That sounds nothing like you.”

“And you think you’ve got a good read on me?” He turns his head slightly, so that it’s his cheek that rests on the headrest, and he’s sort of facing her. It’s not meant to be a challenging question — playful, maybe — but Skye’s face turns serious.

“Yeah, I think I do. I mean, it’s something I’ve always been good at — getting a read on people. You have to be good at it when you’re on your own, if only to decide who’s a potential threat.”

“I guess I’m clearly not a threat.”

“No,” she answers, shrugging her shoulders. “I mean, it’s not because you’re not a badass, because we both know you totally are.” She raises her eyebrows as she smiles at him, and he can't hold back a smirk. “It’s because...Ward and May, they’re both really worried about protocol. But you...you’re more worried about what’s right. And you’re not the kind of person who would break protocol just for the hell of it…”

“Like you?” His voice is wry, and she smiles at the interruption, but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge it.

“...but if you felt that doing the right thing and following the protocol were different...you would do the right thing. That’s what you did for Amador, right? Why May was so mad?”

“Yes,” he acknowledges.

“But you knew it was the right thing to do.” She pauses thoughtfully. “I guess I don’t see how you can believe in second chances, and see what’s right instead of what’s technically correct, and trust me even though you probably shouldn’t have…” There’s another long pause, and he thinks she looks guilty for a flash. “Those things don’t line up with someone who would push someone hard enough to...break them.”

“I’m...different, now, than I was.”

“Before you were nearly killed, you mean?”

“Yeah...nearly.” He mumbles the word sarcastically, but he knows Skye hears it because she takes a sharp breath.

“So you…”

“I was dead,” he answers.

She’s silent for a long time, watching him, and he wonders what she sees.

“For how long?”

“My file says eight seconds. A doctor’s report says 40 seconds.”

“You don’t believe either one of them,” she states, and he’s surprised she can read his thoughts so well. But he shouldn’t be, he supposes.

“I don’t know what I believe,” he answers, and it’s a true statement, even if it’s overly simplistic.

“But you don’t believe those stories.” She takes a long, thoughtful pause, and he can see her put together pieces, draw connections. “SHIELD is lying to you about something, and you don’t know whether it’s protocol or for your safety...because it’s right.”

“Perhaps.”

“And you don’t trust SHIELD to do things for the right reason, do you?”

He lets the question hang in the air too long, in part because he doesn’t know the answer. There was a point in time when he would have trusted any call that Fury made. Lately, though — since around the time that Thor dropped out of the sky and the applications of Tesseract power became something one had to think about — it’s like Fury is a different man. And…

“That’s what I thought,” Skye says.

He decides he can leave his doubts with her. In part, it’s building trust, but it’s more because she’s the only one to whom he _could_ admit them. He’s about to tell her to keep quiet, to not draw further assumptions, to not hear things he didn’t say, but she beats him to it.

“Don’t worry AC. I won’t tell anyone. For the record, though, I get that you feel different, but...who you are now is pretty great.”

He smiles at that, and it’s met by a sweet smile from Skye that makes him feel...okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't *think* the end of this conversation technically violates canon, but I also think you could 'read' the show as suggesting that Skye doesn't even know Coulson died before 'Yes Men.' (Is that right? If I've started actually changing canon, someone please let me know so I can either recant or just run with it.) Still, I feel it fits the development we see in their relationship that Skye knows about his fears of Tahiti before their talk at the end of 'Yes Men.'


	5. Girl in the Flower Dress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson is rambly in his own head about Skye's betrayal and her bracelet. (Sort of a throw-away.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene takes place at the end of the episode.

He leaves her in his office, leaves her to put the bracelet on herself because he feels...bad.

All day, his head has been full of possibilities — that she’s been sending information back all the time; that she’s collecting information to take with her at a later date; that she’s actually connected to Centipede.

So, basically, his thoughts have veered towards the ridiculous.

Because he had known, since day one, that she had a secret. And he had known, since day one, that it was probably not something that should break his trust in her.

He's right to be angry with her, of course, because even if the boyfriend had been innocent, bringing him in would have done him no harm and might have sped things up. But even so, her confession and her sad eyes and her tears leave him feeling like he’s overreacted.

And he sort of wishes she had been willing to trust him with this earlier, might be hurt that she felt she couldn’t.

What he’s left with now is that, really, his trust has not been broken. Because he always knew something was coming, didn’t he? And it turns out to be something that’s big, yes, but also something personal in a way that makes her no threat at all.

So, he leaves her in his office to put on the bracelet herself because, when it comes down to it, his overall strategy with Skye remains unchanged. She needs to know that they trust her, and she needs to feel comfortable trusting them.

There’s a part of him that wants to skip the bracelet altogether. For one, he's basically handicapping himself, his team, and he knows it. (Wonders if it will come back to bite him on the ass.) He's not thrilled with making their relationship one where he's always monitoring her, either. 

Mostly, though, he still trusts her, even without it. Skye made a bad judgment call, but she didn’t betray him. She wouldn’t. He knows it. 

Which, ironically, is part of why the bracelet a good idea. He’s been getting too comfortable with her. Too familiar. (He shouldn't have expressed doubts about SHIELD and his death. He knows this. Knew it then.) And it’s something that might help him remember that Skye isn’t a partner. She’s not even an agent.

But he still feels bad about it.

A voice in the back of his head — one that keeps getting louder — tells him that he never would have even had second thoughts before his death. Before Tahiti. There are more and more things that he thinks he never would have said or done or thought before Tahiti, and he doesn’t know what to do with that information, how to process it, whether he trusts it. Sometimes he questions whether he’s himself.

And Skye is, weirdly, a part of those feelings. Her very presence, the fact that he trusted her so easily, that he still trusts her even when he shouldn’t...it’s all a blindingly obvious testimony to the fact that he’s different.

He remembers her words — that he’s pretty great — and it makes him smile.

It’s in this weird frame of mind that May finds him.

“So, we’re really abandoning the boyfriend in Asia?”

“I don’t see why not,” he answers.

“Second chances? The new softer Phil Coulson? Amador was almost frightened by how different you were, but this...this almost seems like the old you.” She says it like that’s not a bad thing, more like she’s just curious.

“What’s the guy ever done to deserve a second chance?”

“He helped with the mission, same as she did.”

“But Skye didn’t sell someone’s life for personal gain. Skye would never be that stupid or that immoral.”

“She fucked him, though.”

He makes a show of being faux-scandalized by her language choice, but shrugs it off.

“I recall a certain Greek acrobat assassin in _your_ bed, May. If we want to talk about shady partners, we could start there?”

May narrows her eyes at him, but she seems to be in a good mood about it.

“So we’re keeping the girl on, then?”

“Skye,” he corrects. “Her name is Skye.”

"And are you going to take back your gloating about her?" 

He smiles at that and shakes his head. 

"No, I don't think I will. She's going to be a great agent, and she fits here."

“Ward’s convinced she’s been hiding something else.”

“She has been.” He nods, his eyes serious. “It’s not a threat.”

“Are you planning to share?”

“Eventually.” He smiles at her, and May frowns as he continues towards the galley.


	6. F.Z.Z.T.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is emoting. (Another throw away scene, really...next chapter has actual substance to it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Fitz goes to get the Chitauri helmet, he runs past Coulson and Skye. Scene is their imaginary conversation just before that.

“How are you holding up?” They’re alone in the lounge area; Ward and May have both sequestered themselves, keeping out of the way as Simmons searches for her own cure, and he’s got nothing better to do than stalk the plane making sure his team members are okay.

“I’m pretty terrible,” Skye answers. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her hands shake where they hold her tablet.

Coulson just nods, and waits as she gathers herself.

“I’ve been poking around, trying to see if any other teams have come up with anything. They haven’t. It looks like whatever device FitzSimmons made is miles ahead of what anyone else has gotten to. And I don’t really understand the science, but no one thinks they have the right cells to make a cure.”

He nods again, swallowing back his own terror.

“The truth is, in any other circumstance, Simmons would be the one figuring this out, saving everyone else’s life.”

“She’s that good, huh?”

“Did you doubt it?” He tries to give her a wry smile, but he’s not sure he succeeds in actually turning his mouth up.

“I still haven’t gotten used to being surrounded by geniuses,” she answers. “FitzSimmons are so easy to talk to, you know, when they’re not doing their crazy technobabble and finishing each other’s sentences…”

“It’s easy to forget that they’re world renowned scientists, and think of them just as your friends.”

“World-renowned, really?”

“Absolutely. They’re both child prodigies, you know. Youngest ever at the Sci-Tech academy. Simmons finished her first PhD at 16.”

“Man, that’s when I dropped out of high school,” Skye whispers, shaking her head. “Did they...I mean...have they always known each other?”

“No. My understanding is that they met at the academy. Their SO, Agent Vaughn, said they became inseparable in their first semester there.”

Skye closes her eyes, then, and he watches as a few tears spill down her cheeks.

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I’m trying to keep it together, I really am.”

“I know. You’re doing well.”

He lets a gentle hand rest on her shoulder, rubbing her arm in a way that he can only hope is comforting.

“Thanks.” Her eyes open, large and watery, and she lets out a mirthless chuckle. “I just...I haven’t known her that long, but I already like her so much. And I keep thinking… She must be so terrified. And Fitz...he must be…”

He nods, his mouth pulled into a deep frown as his hand slides off of her arm, and they’re both silent in contemplation until Skye speaks again.

“If Simmons can’t…” Their eyes meet, and he knows she's having a hard time vocalizing his own worst fear. “If she can’t fix it…”

“Protocol says…” He can’t actually complete the sentence, and instead runs a hand over his face. He hears her sniff and take a deep breath before he uncovers his face.

“May said you faked a bad transmission to avoid getting those orders.”

“I did,” he answers. “I don’t want to put the team at more risk than necessary, but…”

“You made the right call,” Skye tells him, her voice and eyes utterly sincere. He lets out a breath, not having realized how much he needed someone to tell him that. (That’s wrong, he should be confident in his leadership without hearing such things, but it’s also true. It's her life -- their lives -- that he's risking, too, after all.)

He nods once to acknowledge her comment.

They both take a moment to collect themselves, and he’s about to go check on May when Fitz comes tearing through the room, carrying the Chitari helmet.

“Isn’t that…”

“Fitz!”

They run after him, but reach the bottom floor too late to stop him from entering the quarantined zone. It’s tense, and God knows he can’t approve of Fitz’s action, but it’s a relief to see that his science team have an actual plan.

At the end of the day, when everyone is safe and alive and pulled out of the ocean, he’s proud of how his whole team handled the situation. He’s impressed with Simmons’s genius and bravery, with Fitz’s determination and loyalty, and with the bond of friendship that makes his science team the best in SHIELD. He’s relieved that Ward and May seem to have agreed with his decision, and that Ward got to Simmons in time.

And he’s quietly impressed with Skye, too. While he and Ward and May had wandered the ship feeling helpless, her internet log reveals just how hard she was working. She's right, of course, that no one else got anywhere close to a cure, but he appreciates the fact that, without any direction or supervision, she applied herself the best way she could to helping. Her loyalty and devotion to the team and her support of his decisions make him glad as ever that he has her on board. 


	7. The Hub

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is more emoting, more bonding, and forgiveness. And more hugging.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene starts right after Coulson tells Skye what he found at the Hub and skips forward a bit to the end, when he hangs up after finding out that his file is classified.

She rushes at him with a hug when he tells her about the woman who dropped her off at the orphanage, and he can’t return it at first. He’s partially saddened that this little nugget of information — already a lie on his his part, the telling of which leaves a sour taste in his mouth — makes her so happy.

Slowly, he raises a hand and rubs her back, the motion soft and restrained, barely ruffling her hair. There’s a part of him that wants to give her more, though, and whether it’s more physical affection or more information is hard to say. That question drives him to leave quickly when he pulls away, but he still listens for the sound of her sitting back down on her bed.

He and May go over the files he’s found more closely, including the gruesome image of a murdered woman. It’s not that he won’t tell her, he tells himself, it’s just that he wants to wait until he has a little more. Just enough that he won’t give her false hope or more grief than she needs.

What he hasn’t told anyone — not even May — is that in addition to digging for files on Skye, he has been digging for his own files. And the trail has run dry, except for a single file that he’s not even sure exists. He’s just hanging up the phone, feeling the weight of SHIELD’s secrets on his shoulders, when Skye pushes her head into the half opened door of his office.

The look on her face tells him instantly that she’s heard what he was trying to access, and she looks...sad for him. It just makes him feel worse about feeding her lies, although they are lies that he tells himself are for her own good. He wonders if the lies SHIELD is giving him are for _his_ own good, and he wonders if that’s ever a valid reason to lie.

“I heard,” she admits quietly, as she steps fully inside. He nods and motions for her to shut the door, which she does before taking a seat on the couch on the far wall.

“The files aren’t to be released to anyone,” he tells her, although he imagines that’s exactly what she heard.

“I’m sorry.”

He leans back against his desk and examines her. Part of him expects her to gloat — that he has found himself at his wits end, exhausting the _legal_ means of searching for information in SHIELD. But that’s not Skye, and he knows it.

“Thanks,” he answers, not sure what else to say.

“I know… I know I said that the worst part was not knowing. But really, the _real_ worst part is _knowing_ that there’s something you don’t know. And redacted reports and secret files...that’s how you know.”

He just gives her a sad smile, more sorry than anything that she _does_ understand what he's going through.

“Do you think… I mean… Do you think it might be for a good reason?”

He looks at her for a long time, seeking some evidence that she’s being snarky, that she _is_ actually gloating, and he remembers his repeated advice to _trust the system_. But no, it’s not like Skye to gloat. It’s like Skye to commiserate and to try to make him feel better.

“I don’t know,” he answers, and she nods.

“Well, I can at least keep you company living in the dark about huge, personal secrets.”

He smiles at that, at the way she has of calming a whole situation, and he sees her relax in turn.

“Look, I just… I wanted to say earlier that I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble or anything.”

“You didn’t,” he tells her.

“I just…”

“Skye,” he cuts her off. “I wanted to bring you on board because you work outside the system. Because you _don’t_ trust the system.”

“You were so mad at me, though,” she whispers, sounding so  _hurt_. It’s easy to forget how young she is and how difficult her life must have been. It’s easy, right now, though, to imagine her as the young orphaned girl who was passed between too many foster homes, who must have tried so hard to strike a balance between making people happy and doing what she thought she needed to do.

He swallows and casts his eyes down to his feet.

“Today taught me the value in questioning the system,” he tells her. “It was probably naive on my part, but I never imagined that in a situation of life and death, a SHIELD operation would be built around a lie.”

She nods, eyes downcast on her hands, clasped in her lap.

“The truth is that I like the way we do things on the Bus,” he continues.

“Me, too.”

“I’m not mad at you. If anything, I’m grateful. Ward and Fitz would be dead if not for you, and I can’t...I can’t be mad about that.”

She nods once, looking a little less on the brink of tears, and makes to rise off the couch.

“Skye.” She sits back down again, but she isn’t actually meeting his eyes, and it bothers him deeply. “I don’t want you to be upset with me, either.”

He regrets the words instantly, though they at least have the effect of making her look up at him. He’s actually found himself grateful for her bracelet in the past few weeks, grateful for a tangible reminder that Skye isn’t actually a partner, grateful for the piece of metal that keeps them at a little bit of a distance. But then, other times, he lets his mouth and his actions run away with him, and he absolutely treats her that way. He doesn’t know if it’s wishful thinking or future thinking or foolish thinking, though, and until he does...

There’s a long pause during which he thinks she might be sizing him up

“You didn’t know, did you?”

“No,” he answers. “Hand didn’t tell me. If she had, I never would have allowed Fitz and Ward to go in blind.”

“I think what scared me the most was that you wouldn’t just _say_ that. It was like...Robot Coulson. And I don’t like Robot Coulson.”

“I understand that.”

“It’s just… I trust you, you know? _You_. This Coulson. When you talk to me and explain things to me and, you know, hear what I have to say.”

“I’m glad you do.”

“And when you said that you wouldn’t trust me with a secret…”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You _implied_ it. You suggested that me poking around made me untrustworthy, but…”

“But it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t. I get that.”

“Do you?”

“If you knew it was the right thing to do, you would keep any secret I asked you to. And if I asked you to keep a secret or to do _anything_ that you thought wasn’t the right thing…”

“I would tell you,” she answers. “I wouldn’t just go behind your back without _trying_ to talk to you.”

“I know. Just like you did today. I trust your judgement, Skye.”

“Thank you.” She breathes the words, and he watches her trying to blink away an onslaught of tears. It moves him deeply, seeing how much she needed to hear that, and he strides over to the couch to sit next to her. 

“We’re still learning to function,” he tells her, meaning both himself and her and the team as a whole. “There are bound to be moments when we’re going to disagree and when communication is going to break down. The key is to learn, okay?”

She nods, sliding fingers under her eyes to stop the tears.

“If I hadn’t found out anything big today, would you have kicked me off the Bus for doing what I did?”

He blinks twice at her, sort of appalled that she thinks he would be so fickle and so callous.

“No,” he answers. “Of course not.”

“Would you still have looked up those files for me?”

“Of course,” he answers. “I promised I would.”

She lets out a long breath then, along with a little sound that might be a laugh, but is accompanied by more tears. He leans forward and lays a hand on her arm, rubbing up to her shoulder as she gets herself under control.

“Thank you,” she tells him. “For all of this. Just...thank you.”

He nods once, and is not surprised when she leans forward and hugs him again, arms tight around his neck. This time he reciprocates a little better, wrapping his arms more firmly around waist instead of patting awkwardly.

He likes the way it feels to hug her, and it’s only when his arms are full of her that he realizes how much he needed it, too.

When she pulls back, she looks a million times better, and she smiles at him.

“‘Night, AC.”

“Goodnight.”

 


	8. The Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson and Skye discuss group dynamics over bourbon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene takes place as Ward leaves Skye in the hotel bar.

Coulson notices Skye and Ward talking around the corner of the bar, watches as Skye's offer of a shoulder is rebuffed. She seems remarkably not phased by the rejection, though, and he supposes it was more than expected — Ward just isn't someone who opens up, after all. She looks after him pensively as he walks away to enjoy the hotel amenities for one night.

He’s watched Skye and Ward together and is relatively pleased with their relationship, at least for now. Ward needs someone to be protective toward — his psych eval indicates that he’s more comfortable in a one-on-one leadership position than in a team — and he’s glad Skye doesn’t feel smothered by the attention. It seems like a looming inevitability of their relationship, though, that Ward’s tendency towards unilateral decision making will begin to bother her. He doesn't need a psych eval to know that Skye will feel best in situations where her insights, and her autonomy, are respected. And where she can give comfort, the kind Ward isn't good at taking, as much as receive it. Still, whatever concerns he has about their future interactions, everything seems safe for now, and Ward really is the best option to act as Skye's SO.

“I don’t know whether to be angry or impressed,” she tells him as she takes a seat next to him at the bar, surprising him, but only slightly.

He’s used to her company, lately, used to spending some portion of every day with her, whether quietly working or talking about things. She’s made herself at home in the more comfortable armchair in his office, which she pulled closer to his desk some point in the past week. Of course, it’s largely out of necessity, since she’s most effective on her computer when he’s right nearby to allow access. But it’s rapidly becoming a habit he enjoys, and he hopes it’s that way for her, too.

He likes her company there, and he likes it here. Her presence, even across a room, turns his thoughts away from troubling memories that don't seem quite right.

“Angry about what?” He puts down his bourbon and turns towards her, watching as she crosses her legs and gestures to the bartender. She's dressed up just slightly to come down to the hotel bar, he realizes, replacing her usual jeans with a short fitted skirt that leaves a great deal of her thighs bare. His eyes linger too long before he pulls them away and into his nearly-empty cup, which also explains the reason for his wandering attention. 

“Ward told you he didn’t trust himself.”

“He did.”

“But you still…

“I still pushed him to stay with us?”

She nods, slowly, still considering him.

“Why?”

He thinks she’s wary of him, wondering if he risked Ward’s life unnecessarily. Her protectiveness charms him, and so does her tone right now — a bit guarded, but feeling out the whole situation. 

“I make it a habit to trust my people,” he tells her. “Sometimes, that means taking their fears seriously. Other times, it means knowing that they’re better than their fears.”

“And you trusted Ward’s abilities even when he didn’t.”

“He knew he had stepped out of line with you and FitzSimmons. I don’t know exactly what he said, but he was upset with himself for saying it.”

“He said I talk too much. That all of us never stop talking.” She rolls her eyes to herself. “I mean, he’s always action guy, I guess. When Simmons was sick, he was mostly annoyed that he couldn’t fix the situation by shooting someone.”

“Ward’s preferred method of problem solving is to rush in, guns blazing,” he agrees. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

“Right, as long as he’s got someone like you telling him which people to shoot.”

He smirks at that, and she continues speaking.

“The worst was Fitz, though. He basically suggested that Fitz isn’t brave or good enough, and I think...”

“Ward’s approval means a lot to Fitz, especially after their mission.”

“You get that, too?”

“Yes.” He smiles at her careful consideration of the team dynamics — that’s an important quality in a leader, and she’s excellent at it.

“I think Fitz is too concerned with what other people think of him.”

“It's mostly a symptom of growing up," he suggests. "He’ll figure it all out eventually.”

“Um, isn’t he older than I am?”

“Yes. But a lot more sheltered. You’ve seen more than he has, and you're clearly a lot more confident in yourself."

She smiles at that, catching his eye and looking flattered at what he didn’t really intend to be a compliment, just a statement of fact. Their gaze is broken when the bartender sets down another bourbon with a single icecube, which Skye picks up and holds under her nose.

“So, what made you make your call about Ward? Why did you believe he could handle it?”

Coulson drains the last of his drink and nods at the bartender.

“Because, mentally, he’s stronger than he thinks he is." He tilts his empty glass and rolls the bottom edge in wobbly circles on the bar as he considers Ward, then lets the glass drop fully onto the wood before pushing it away. "I think acknowledging his past instead of shutting it off...that might make him a better agent in general.”

Skye nods, clearly chewing over his words. He turns on his stool to face her, and watches her in profile as she sips from her glass. He's almost surprised at what a sophisticated figure she cuts — lounging in a bar stool sipping bourbon in a short skirt. That the skirt is denim, that it is worn with cowboy boots, hardly seems to matter when she carries herself like she owns the place.

She turns to face him, and if she catches him admiring her, she doesn't let on.  

“I was too worried about making sure Ward was okay to think about it that way.” He can see it in her face, though, that she’s thinking about it now, bringing together his assessment of Ward with whatever she's decided before. 

“And I’m glad you were. Ward has been on his own for so long, I think he’s forgotten that he can depend on other people. Today, I hope he saw that he can count on you. That’s a good thing.”

“Thanks,” she says, and he nods. “I’m glad you trust people like that.”

“Just my team,” he corrects her, and she shoots him a half-smile.

“And that definitely includes me, now?”

He raises his eyebrows at her, believing the answer to the question to be self-evident. She’s still worried, though, still nursing wounds from the Hub and the death of Mr. Yin.

“Of course.”

“Good.” She nods, seems happy with the simple answer. 

Their gaze holds for another few seconds, and he offers her a small smile before turning to accept a fresh drink from the bartender. 

Together, they sit in comfortable silence and nurse their bourbons, each facing forward, and he’s still glad for her company. 


	9. Repairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson and Skye chat in his office (because my headcanon says they spend a lot of time in his office).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene takes place at the start of the episode, before we cut to Skye and Coulson. (And before they walk down the stairs together in such cutely perfect sync.)

“So what are we working on today, boss man?”

She barges into his office like she owns the place — and lately, she’s been spending almost as much time in here as he does, so it’s actually not surprising. He watches as she curls into the armchair across from his desk, waiting for any sort of instruction on what she should be doing.

“Have you made any progress tracking Centipede?”

“No.” Her face falls, looking distinctly guilty, and he feels bad that she’s taking too much guilt upon herself.

“It’s not your fault.”

“It is, though. If I hadn’t tried to protect Miles, we might have gotten to their facility in Hong Kong sooner. Even if we couldn’t have saved Yin, we might have had more to go on.”

“That’s unlikely, you know. We still had to run all the financials before Miles confessed his involvement.”

“Yeah, but if I had been running the financial check, it would have been a lot faster.”

He smiles at that, shaking his head. There’s something so... _Skye_ about bragging and expressing guilt in the same sentence.

“It does no good to beat yourself up about it now. Not if it’s preventing you from moving forward. The idea here is to learn your lesson and do better next time.”

“I will,” she promises with utter seriousness.

“I know you will.” He catches his lips quirked upwards in a fond smile, and tries to school his face towards stoicism. 

“With that in mind, maybe you could…” She holds up her wrist, next to her smiling, hopeful face. It’s mostly a joke, and they both know it, so he just frowns at her. “Oh, come on. You trust me.”

“Perhaps.”

He isn’t sure if he has a good reason for keeping the bracelet on her at this point, except that it’s only been a few weeks and it seems like it should _mean something_ when he removes it. Like when she passes the Level 1 tests. Not that those tests will matter much, given that he’s basically rewarded her for thinking outside of the SHIELD protocol she’ll be tested on.

He’s unsettled by the thought that keeping the bracelet on her might have more to do with _him_ than with _her_. As long as she’s wearing it, she’s marked, _clearly_ , as a subordinate...and he’s not comfortable examining why that’s so important.

“Anyways,” she cuts off his train of thought, and he can’t read the expression on her face. “I’ve been trying to trace the financials on the woman in the floral dress..." 

“But no luck?”

“None. I mean, I've gone through at least four different shell accounts, but the trail is cold."

"We don't even have her name, do we?" 

"Nope."

 "So we have an anonymous woman known only by her sartorial choices, we have the encrypted files you gathered from the facility…”

“...and pretty much nothing else,” she finishes.

He nods, resigned to waiting this one out for more information, but Skye is clearly still agitated.

“You’ve done good work,” he tells her, frowning when she doesn’t react to the compliment.

“I  _will_ figure out how to break the encryption on the files.” She voices the promise earnestly — making it, again, both a brag about her skills and an expression of guilt.

“You’ll do your best.” _And that’s enough_ , he doesn’t finish out loud.

“Yeah.” She offers him a weak smile. “I just wish my best was getting faster results.”

He bites back an urge to comfort her beyond what he’s already said — anything more would be stepping well outside the role of her boss, and he’s been trying to keep that line in tact. Of course, the fact that he has to _try_ is already a cause of consternation. But he’s avoided hugging her or crawling into the back seat of a car with her for a few weeks now, at least. He runs a hand over his face and leans back.

“We’ll find them,” he promises her, and she smiles.

“I know. I’m glad I get to help.” 

“Good.”

He nods and watches her for a moment, waiting until she seems ready to talk about something else. 

“What are your thoughts about doing more fieldwork?”

“You mean, like, stepping out from behind the computer and working with the people?”

“Pretty much.”

The start of a grin is cut off by a pensive expression.

“Do I have to _shoot_ the people?” She says it like it’s a joke, but they both know it’s not exactly.

He chuckles at her question and shakes his head.

“I’m thinking more like...make contact and be the friendly face of SHIELD.”

“So, more like you and less like Ward?”

He smirks at that.

“That’s the idea.”

“I think I like that idea.” She smiles into the words, and he smiles back.

Ward has been focused on physical training and firearms, but Coulson has been thinking about expanding Skye’s training to focus more directly on her strengths. And reading people, understanding people, communicating with people — those are big strengths.

“This is our current mission,” he begins, throwing a picture of Hannah Hutchins up on the screen in his office as well as to her tablet. “Possible telekinetic.”

Later that night, when Hannah is sleeping in Skye’s borrowed bunk and May seems to have found some measure of peace with herself, he has time to really appreciate how well Skye did. And how good she’ll do in the future. She asks the right questions, makes the right observations, draws the right conclusions. Of course, Skye hasn’t seen enough bad ones, yet. His gut had told him, the same as hers had told her, that they were doing Ms. Hutchins no favors by keeping her locked up today. And he knows Skye would probably laugh at the irony, but he _hates_ protocol sometimes — he hates having to put aside raw human empathy in cases like this, where someone _might_ pose a threat they aren’t even aware of.

The only way Skye is going to learn these things is by participating more actively in them, though, and he just hopes he can get her the kind of field experience she needs without seeing too much more clashing between her and May.

 


	10. The Bridge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson talks to May about Skye, and then to Skye about May. (Coulson the peacemaker -- totally a trope in my head.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene is a followup to the fight May picks with Skye. (Note that I don't intend for this to be May-bashing *at all.* But I think May's behavior in this scene was inappropriate, and it can [and should] be called out as such without reflecting badly on her whole character.)
> 
> Other note: I completely believe that Coulson knows about May and Ward as of this episode. When he sees them sparring, I think his face says that he caught Ward's double entendre and May's reaction. It's okay if you disagree, but I make mention of it this chapter, so I want to acknowledge that.

[“If you can’t put aside your personal attachments, then _you shouldn’t be here_.”]

May’s voice carries up to his office, and he starts towards the stairs, unsure of whether he has to diffuse a scene between her and Skye. As he starts down the spiral staircase, he doesn’t see May, but he does see Skye dart into her bunk and begin to tear up files before the door slides shut. He almost knocks, but he stops short at the sound of her sobs. The desire to comfort her is strong, but seeing her in this state — clearly a private one — would trounce the boundaries he’s trying to maintain between them.

Instead, he heads towards the cockpit and finds May exactly where he expects her to be, despite the fact that they’re grounded. He takes a seat in the co-pilot’s chair, but she doesn’t so much as acknowledge his presence.

“You want to tell me what that was about?”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

He pauses, wonders if May really expects him to take that for an answer.

“I disagree.”

She sighs at him, though her eyes stay forward.

“Her attachment to this woman — this _dead_ woman — is getting in the way of her being an effective part of the team.”

“And what do you base that on? Did she mess something up that I don’t know about?”

“No.”

He’s silent for at least a minute, looking out at the darkened hangar base, and wondering if they’re going to keep up the charade that earlier this morning he _didn’t_ hear Ward strongly insinuate that they’ve been sleeping together; that he didn’t hear May respond with a sharp dismissal that means it’s definitely true. Between that, her anger at him for welcoming Mr. Peterson, and her anger him for at involving her in Skye’s past...he supposes it’s not shocking that she’d snap at someone.

He just wishes it had been him, and not Skye.

“You’re lying to her.” She breaks off his thought process with the accusation, derailing his plans to keep the conversation focused on her and not Skye.

“You lashed out at Skye because I’m lying to her?”

“I _wanted_ to tell her the truth.”

“Why? For her? Or for you?”

Her face tightens into a sharp scowl. She hasn’t looked at him since he walked in, but somehow she manages to not look at him even harder.

“May, if there’s a problem with Skye, I need you to let me know.”

“I don’t believe she’s committed to this team. She’s here for personal reasons.”

“Unless you have some evidence to put on the table, I have to disagree. Skye has shown her commitment to this team time and again.”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“Then you haven’t been watching.” He’s close to losing his cool over May’s dismissal of Skye’s obvious loyalty, especially after she’s spent so many hours quietly sitting at May’s side this week.

“Maybe if you weren’t so _smitten_ with the girl, you’d see that her obsession with this is going leave her with divided loyalties. It’s dangerous.”

“I don’t even know which part of that to start with.” He says it in a light manner, as though he’s not currently having a fight with May, and she rolls her eyes.

“You _know_ such strong emotional attachments can be dangerous.”

“Are you talking about hers, or the one you seem to think I have?” _Or the one_ you _clearly have_ , he adds quietly to himself.

“Either.”

“I’ll agree that some personal attachments can get in the way of the job, but I don’t think it always has to be that way. My hope in putting together this team was to have a group of people who _would_ be attached to each other. I think that when we’re all willing to risk our lives for each other...that makes us better.”

“And when there’s a hard choice that has to be made?”

“We’ve already made some hard choices. All of us. And I’m proud of how we’ve done.”

Her jaw tightens as she looks ahead, but she nods once in acceptance of the fact that they’ve got a good team going.

“But Skye…” May cuts off and swallows. “If… _when_...we find out that SHIELD was involved in her parents’ deaths somehow? What then?”

Her question makes his stomach drop, the sinking sensation of guilt making him consciously aware of the fact that this _is_ part of the reason he’s been lying to Skye, even if he hasn’t admitted it to himself. He takes a deep, slow breath and lets it out.

“I don’t know.”

“You and I both know that she probably isn’t going to like whatever she finds about SHIELD involvement. And if that happens, I want to know that she’s committed to the team, _not_ whatever secrets are waiting.”

“I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive, especially not for her. She’s made a choice to be here, and if the worst turns out to be true...we’ll do what we can to minimize the damage.”

“So keep lying to her, you mean.”

“What do you want me to say? I don’t know what we’re going to find, but I do know that I can’t just let her stay in the dark about this. Not when we might be able to find answers.”

“Keeping everything in the dark...not finding out the things that might be dangerous… Don’t you think that might be safest for everyone?”

“Maybe safest isn’t what’s best, then.”

She turns to him then, more emotion written on her face than he thinks he’s ever seen, as though she’s about to share something big.

“Phil…” She cuts herself off, though, and shuts her eyes, shakes her head. When she opens them again, she looks like normal Melinda May. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

“If I promise to talk to her, can we just end this conversation here?”

She’s looking out the front of the plane into the darkened hangar again, but she looks less angry and more tired. He wants to push it — he wants to ask her what she’s doing with Ward, why she can’t admit that Mike Peterson is an asset, why she’s so determined to undervalue Skye — but he doesn’t. May has opened up quite a bit in the last few months, and he doesn’t have any desire to compromise whatever progress they’ve made restoring their past friendship by pushing her too hard.

There was a time — a lifetime ago even _before_ he died — when he and May talked about everything. She had helped him learn to be a leader, had been his sounding board on everything, and even if she’d never talked much, she had still always shared something of herself. But it’s stupid of him to be upset that they don’t have what they did so many years ago — before Bahrain changed her from quiet to closed off.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into Skye’s search,” he finally says. “I know you’re not comfortable with it."

She nods her curt thanks for the apology, and he knows he owes Skye a similar one.

"I also think that Skye is the kind of person who gets emotionally invested in things. And for her, that’s going to go hand in hand with being a good agent.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“No, you’ll see.” He smiles at her, and May rolls her eyes. “I’m right about her, May.”

“Emotional attachments…”

“...aren’t things we can just avoid. Even you.”

She nods at that, and he smiles, relaxing back into the chair.

“You _are_ smitten, though." Her voice is almost playful, but the words worry him.

“Smitten is for children. I just know talent when I see it.”

She shakes her head, almost smiling.

“Sure, Phil. That’s why you spend hours in your office with Fitz.”

He swallows, suddenly feeling too serious for her teasing tone.

“Do you think I’m doing something wrong?”

“Of course not. We both know you wouldn’t.”

He nods, simultaneously pleased and disappointed with that answer.

“I’m going to go check on her.”

She shoots him a look at that — challenging but not angry — and he huffs.

“Smitten,” he hears her mumble as he leaves the cockpit, but it sounds good — teasing — and it makes him relax instead of tense up.

As he approaches Skye’s door, it’s still closed, but he can’t hear her crying inside, so he knocks softly. (He has never knocked on Fitz’s door. Or Simmons’s. Or Ward’s. He _does not_ think about that.)

“Come in.” It’s muffled but intelligible, so he enters to find her sitting on her bed, arms wrapped around her knees. The shredded remains of all of her best leads poke out of a wastebasket in the corner.

“Hi.”

“Hey, AC.” She forces a smile at him, and he returns it a little sadly.

“Are you okay?”

“You heard what happened with May, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” He nods.

“I’m committed to this team. You know that, right?”

“Yes. I do.”

He wishes, really desperately, that there was another place to sit in these small bunks. Standing in the doorway is just...awkward. The sound of Ward saying something to FitzSimmons in the background, though, presses on him the need to step inside and slide the door shut to preserve Skye’s privacy. Given that he’s already violated her privacy by bringing May into the mix, he doesn’t want to mess things up any further.

“You wanna sit down?” She pats the bed next to her and looks up at him with a small grin playing across her face.

The trouble, of course, is that he _does_.

“I don’t think that would be…”

“...appropriate?” She almost laughs at the word, and he tries to glare at her. He doesn’t know when _this_ became their relationship — Skye openly mocking the idea of boundaries between them. Except that it’s always been that way.

“Not so much.”

“I’ve never really been one for caring about appropriate.” She smiles up at him, her eyes teasing and playful in a way that, if he’s honest with himself, has always drawn him in.

“No, you haven’t, have you?” His lips quirk slightly in an amused grin, and her smile gets brighter.

He mentally kicks himself because apparently he’s _smitten_ , and really letting it show.

“Just sit down, AC.” She sounds exasperated, and he realizes that he’s been standing in her room just staring down at her. “You’re looming. It’s creepy.”

So he does, moving across the room and sitting down next to her so they both face the door. It’s a small space — he feels momentarily guilty for his large suite — but it’s not uncomfortable.

“I wanted to apologize for bringing May into your search. I knew she was uncomfortable with it, and it didn’t make things any easier for you, either.”

“Yeah. That...wasn’t easy.”

“It sounded like she went off on you for no reason.”

He shifts slightly, pulling up his right leg onto the bed so he can face her, and watches as Skye’s face closes off for a moment as she thinks.

“I think May is just dealing with a lot right now, you know?”

“She is. But that doesn’t make it okay for her to take it out on you.”

“Thanks for saying that.” She smiles crookedly at him, but wraps her arms more tightly around her knees. “I think I understand her worry, though.”

“You do?”

He not sure if he’s amused or impressed or nervous at Skye understanding May’s anger.

“Part of it, anyways. She told me that I have to choose. But that’s only really going to be a problem if it turns out that SHIELD did something...” She looks at him guiltily instead of finishing the sentence, but they both know what she’s saying.

“That might be what we find.” His gut twists at that idea.

“This is still my home, you know?” He stares at her blankly, and she ducks her head down. “No matter what we find, this is still my home. That won’t change. Right?”

“I really hope not.”

She relaxes a little at that, lets go of her knees so she can turn towards him.

“So, unrelated question — is there a SHIELD policy about fraternization between agents?”

“Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Just...reading the SHIELD handbook. I didn’t see one, but, I mean, May is so worried about personal attachment, you know?”

He nods once, scanning over her closely, trying to determine whether she knows about Ward and May, too. But he lets it go — he’s not here to gossip.

“There isn’t an official policy, no. But it’s generally acknowledged as a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Divided loyalties, for one.” She scoffs at that, loudly.

“If two people are both SHIELD agents, I fail to see how loyalty is divided.”

“It might make it tougher to make the hard calls or to follow orders for the common good.” She scoffs again, more loudly.

“You and I have _both_ ignored orders for the sake of this team. How is that any different?”

“Maybe it’s not, when the people are on the same team,” he acknowledges. “As long as the people involved are self-aware enough to know if it’s causing problems.”

“Hmm. Most relationships would benefit if people were better at that.”

He smiles at her and shakes his head.

“It’s probably a lot easier than trying to maintain a relationship with someone outside of SHIELD.”

“Did you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Do you still…”

“She thinks I’m dead.”

“That’s _horrible_.” She sounds genuinely distressed. “Your relationship ended because of SHIELD secrets?”

“We were already less serious by that point. When we met, I was on a mission in Portland and she was trying to break into the music scene there. She’s a cellist.”

He raises his eyes to meet hers, and is surprised by the look on her face — interested, but wistful.

“She got a regular gig in New York, which is where I was based at the time, and we had good year before she finally got her offer from the Portland Philharmonic.”

“So you did long distance?”

“Yeah. I only got to see her a few times before...”

“And there was probably a lot you couldn’t tell her, too, right?”

“Yes.”

“But you loved her.”

“I did. Maybe I still do.” His memories of Audrey are clouded, like they belong to another person, but the feeling is still there. It’s strange — he usually associates lost love with memories divorced from feeling, not the other way around.

"Do you think you’ll ever tell her?"

"I don’t know," he admits. 

There’s a long silence as Coulson ponders Audrey. At a certain point, he thinks she’ll just be angry that he's lied to her for so long.

“But... you disagree with May about personal attachment, right? That personal attachment is a bad thing?”

“Yes,” he answered. “I do. I think that being attached to things...it reminds us why SHIELD is important.”

“I think so, too.”

They smile at each other, and Coulson stands up from the bed.

“I need to talk to Mr. Peterson, if Simmons is finished fixing him up. I just wanted to make sure you’re…”

“I’m fine.”

“Good. You did good work today. And I know half the reason Mr. Peterson is so happy to work with us is that you’re here, greasing the wheels.”

“Mike’s a good guy. I’m glad you finally get a chance to see it.”

“Thanks to you.”

He meets her pleased smile with a fond one before sliding open the door and walking down the hall. 


	11. The Magical Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson is head over heels for Skye in the back of the SUV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene is mostly a tack-on to the final Coulson/Skye scene in the episode.

He has just enough composure to make sure that he doesn’t say anything out loud that will give Raina any more information than she already has, but the pain quickly becomes unbearable. The process of raising the memories feels like someone is digging through his head with a grapefruit spoon, but worse are the memories themselves. It feels like more than memory as the white beaches become a dark operating theater — he _feels_ the pain and the hopelessness and the despair. And _he wants to die_.

It’s Skye that pulls him out of it — Skye’s face and Skye’s voice and Skye’s touch and Skye’s lips pressing against his hands. Her name is a mantra that pulls him out of hell.

So later, when he’s clean and cared for, it hurts to lie to her.

“It wasn’t real. They were just messing with my head, but I appreciate your concern.”

She stands silently, watching him with tears standing in her eyes, for what feels like an eternity.

“I know you’re lying. I mean, I think you probably have a good reason, and I’m not trying to pressure you to tell me anything. I just know you’re lying, and if you’d like to...not lie, you can talk to me, okay?”

He smiles at her, feeling the cut above his right eye sting with the movement of his face.

“Noted,” he answers.

“Okay. Good.” She gives an awkward half-smile and gestures towards the bunks, as though she’s about to leave.

“Skye.” He places a gentle hand on her arm to stop her from going. They look at each other for a long moment, during which May closes the loading dock in preparation for takeoff. The noise of it gives him time to think about the right thing to do. He has an urge to tell her everything he saw today, but he knows that’s a selfish urge — it would be for him, not for her. And today, she saved him. May is finally as impressed with her as he has always been, and he could tell how pissed off Agent Hand was at being shown up by a consultant, even through her attempts to be nice.

It feels like all the reasons he’s given himself for why he can’t think of her as partner are gone, now. She’s smart and resourceful, and he knows — but then, he’s always known — that she would put every bit of her smarts and resourcefulness towards saving anyone on the team. Removing the bracelet was supposed to be a sign of that, but he wants to give her something more, he wants her to understand that he trusts her.

“What’s up AC?” She looks nervous, like she thinks he might chastise her, or slap the bracelet back on her, and he just...he wants to _show_ her.

“Come sit with me.” He motions backwards to the SUV, and her tentative expression brightens into a smile. His hand slides off of her arm as they move to opposite sides and climb into the back.

May gives the word that everyone needs to buckle in, and he’s grateful that it’s loud through takeoff, so he can just lay his head back and enjoy being here. On the Bus, yes, but also with Skye. He likes the way it feels to be in here with her — intimate in a way that he’s been telling himself isn’t safe, but that just feels good tonight. He turns his head towards her, resting his cheek against the headrest, and smiles when he sees her eyes drop from his face to her lap.

He’s glad to see her alive and okay, and he’s sure she feels the same. Out of all of them, it must have been the hardest for her to have him gone — none of the others were kicked off the plane, after all. None of the others had their ideas dismissed. He hopes that Skye’s value as a team member has become more apparent to everyone off the Bus, that her ideas will be given more weight.

He smiles warmly at her when it’s quiet enough to talk again, and she turns fully towards him with a searching expression on her face.

“So, tell me.” He watches her face flash through momentary confusion before breaking into a grin. This is the story of how Skye became his hero, and he both wants to hear it and give her a chance to tell it.

“Well, when Hand decided to kick me off the plane…”

“She apologized for that, by the way.” Sky lets out a small laugh.

“But only to you, not to me.” She rolls her eyes — she understands the politics at play here, but he’s not going to argue that she shouldn’t be offended. “She asked May whether I would be of value, and May said I wouldn’t. It was… ”

“You know you _are_ of value, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she answers, though a bit unconvincingly. “And I mean, May and I talked tonight. She explained that she was playing Hand. And we talked about...before, too. It's probably more words than I've ever heard May say at once," she jokes. "But it was good."

“I'm glad." He smiles at her. Earlier this evening, May had pulled him aside to tell him that she was finally ready to hear him gloat about Skye. “May said they never would have found me if you had been forced to follow Hand’s orders.” She smiles at that, but shrugs humbly. “You impressed May, very much, but she already knew what you could do. I think Agent Hand was the most surprised.”

“The truth is that I could have found you a lot sooner if they would have just let me use SHIELD resources.” She closes her eyes, lays her head back on the seat. “I was so scared. Every hour that passed and I hadn’t found you, I was so scared that…”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, moved by her concern.

“Oh, God, don’t be sorry.” She looks up suddenly, eyes wide and mouth pulled into a frown.

“I’m sorry you had to fight so hard just to do what you knew needed to be done. I’m glad I had you to fight for me, though.”

She smiles at that and settles back down on the seat.

“Agent Hand probably told you that we got Vanchat?”

He nods.

“I just needed to access his financials, but Hand wouldn’t give it to me, and I couldn’t access any computer terminals because they increased the restriction level. So every time I even got _close_ to a computer, it locked up.”

She talks about how much more _difficult_ everything was with the bracelet, as though it’s a running joke about a small annoyance. He can read the truth very clearly — that this was the first time the bracelet _wasn’t_ just an annoyance, that every computer terminal she locked down made her heart seize with fear. He can hear that part of the story even though she doesn’t tell it that way.

And when he sees her gaze turn down to her now-bare right wrist, he lays his left hand over it gently, offering comfort, and maybe seeking some for himself.

“So I found this big time executive tool — Lloyd Rathman — who’s under investigation for holding Swiss bank accounts for clients. My thinking was that if I could get into the system through him, I could figure out the encryption used on the accounts and hack into Vanchat’s that way.”

“That sounds smart,” he comments

“Not to brag, but it totally was. I had to impersonate a SHIELD agent, though." She scrunches up her face at him. "Is that a federal crime?”

“Probably.” He smiles at the word, and she laughs.

“I said I was May.”

“Is that why you’re wearing that jacket?”

“Yeah. I figured that if I wanted to intimidate a bad guy…”

“You look good. Very...intimidating.”

She grins at that, but shakes her head.

“So he showed up and thought I was SHIELD, but the idiot didn’t know how to access his own bank accounts. And I couldn’t do it because of…”

They both look down to where his left hand is now basically clasped around her right wrist in place of the bracelet, but before he can think of moving it, she places her left hand on top of his and shoots him a small smile.

“So then, his private security guards showed up. Luckily, they were incompetent. No problem for Melinda May.”

“No problem for Skye,” he corrects. She grins at him and then drops her gaze back to their hands, and they both watch as she traces a spiraling pattern up his wrist and then back down to his middle finger. His hand clenches around her wrist more tightly at the pleasant tickle, and she looks up at him, meeting his eyes from under her eyelashes.

She lifts her hand off of his, and in a fit of insanity, he releases her wrist in order to draw similar patterns along her hand. The feel of it makes her breathe out a pleasant sigh, and he turns their hands so he can slide his fingers between hers, bringing them palm to palm.

“Long story short, I found the development they’d bought in the Mojave desert. What was with that place, anyways?”

“Apparently it was built as a nuclear test site, and they bought it because it was so...isolated.”

“It was creepy as hell.”

“It was,” he agrees, squeezing her hand in his own.

“I’m glad we got you out, eventually.”

“You did an amazing job, Skye,” he tells her. “Most agents wouldn’t undertake the kind of mission you did today until at least Level 3.”

“Does that mean I’m ready to be an agent?”

“It means we should set up times in the testing facilities.”

“Thanks.” She smiles at him and squeezes his hand.

“In the meantime, I’m thinking that the next operation we run, probably in a week or two, you should take a lead role.”

“Really? Like, you’ll be taking orders from me?” She smirks at him and raises her eyebrows, waggling them the slightest bit.

"More like you’d be my second in command in planning.”

Her face doesn’t fall at the narrower job description, but instead brightens more.

“That sounds really cool, AC.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“But you’re going to take some time first?”

“Yes. I need to see someone...the doctor who oversaw my recovery.”

“You’re going to track down your file.”

“Yes.”

They’re quiet for a long moment, Skye searching his face carefully.

“That machine...it...was making you remember?”

He doesn’t want to answer, doesn’t want to either lie to her or admit that what she heard him saying was real, but his long, pensive silence seems to speak for itself, and she nods solemnly.

“But you’re okay, right? I mean…”

Slowly, she unlaces their fingers and brings both of her hands up to gently cup his face. With a soft touch that avoids touching any of the most painful cuts, she slides her fingers up his jaw, down his nose, across his forehead, and into his hair. He bends his head, willingly letting her take her exploration. Her fingernails at the back of his head send a thrill down his spine, but he contains it to a quiet sigh. 

“I’m okay,” he answers, when she seems satisfied with her own inspection.

She meets his gaze with serious eyes, as though she knows they won’t be seeing much of each other for a few days at least.

“Good luck.” 


	12. Seeds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Skye repairs a little piece of Coulson's faith in humanity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene takes place at some point after the major action of the episode but before Coulson tells May about what Skye said to him. (I mean, basically, the show tells us this scene happened because I don't think the things he said to May came out of the scene we see where he's telling Skye what they found in Mexico.)

Coulson stays behind when Ward, May, and FitzSimmons go back to the Boiler Room, FitzSimmons promising to drink the specialists under the table. Fitz has been down after Donnie’s departure, and he hopes that an evening of levity will help. As the group leaves, Ward pulls him aside and asks if Skye is okay, clearly concerned at her absence. Coulson shrugs off the question, though, deciding that Skye can tell Ward what she wants him to know.

He waits to walk to her bunk, which he’d seen her slip inside after Donnie was escorted off the Bus, until everyone is gone. Waits a few minutes longer to ensure no one is going to come running back for a forgotten phone or wallet or sweater.

Two soft raps on the door earn him a quiet, “come in,” so he walks inside and closes the door behind him. She’s lying on her bed, on her stomach with her head pillowed on her arms, and when she turns her face towards him, it’s clear she’s been crying.

“Hiya, AC.” The mask she puts on is almost too chipper.

“Hi,” he replies. He’s about to ask if she minds the company, but before he can, she’s already sitting up to make room for him next to her on the bed. There’s no hesitation this time, he just sits down next to her, pulling his legs up onto the bed so he can face her as she does the same.

“I know you’re worried about me, but I promise I’m okay.”

He nods once.

“You’re a strong person. I have no doubt you’ll be okay.”

“I _am_ okay.”

“ _That_ , I have a hard time believing.”

She huffs at him, sort of pouty, but with a smile behind it.

“You’re right. I’m not okay, yet. I got some answers, and it’s just…”

“A bigger mystery?” His voice is too wry, too personal, and she looks at him with knowing eyes.

“You found something, too, didn’t you? That’s why you were locked in your office for days.”

“Yes.”

“You gonna share with the class?”

“Not yet.”

She nods, as though that’s a perfectly acceptable answer. The truth is that he _wants_ to share with her. May has been his friend, in some capacity or another, for thirty years, and that leaves her uncomfortable with his doubts, in a rush to give reassuring answers. It comes from a good place, he knows that, but it’s not what he needs right now. Skye would hear out his insecurities, and he has no doubt that she would make him feel better, too, but he just _can’t_ dump this on her. Especially not now.

“At least your mystery has a next step, right? I guess mine is…”

“Over without being solved?” He keeps his eyes down, and he has a moment of worry over whether she’ll decide to leave now that being here won’t help her solve her mystery. It’s stupid and he knows it (she had told him, sitting right here, that _this_ was her home), so he pushes it down. “I’m sorry. I had hoped better for you than finding out that your story just...ends.”

“That is _not_ what this means, AC,” she tells him, serious and full of purpose.

“No?”

“ _No_. It’s...I mean, it’s hard to deal with because it changes my whole identity. But in a good way.”

“A good way,” he repeats, voice full of disbelief.

“I always thought my story was that...I’ve always been alone. No one…no one’s ever wanted me.”

He presses his lips together, oddly concerned that he might cry.

“I thought SHIELD was keeping a big secret from me, and when I found out what it was, I would finally understand my place. Like, the world would make sense. And it turns out that...I already found my place.”

“I’m glad you’ve figured that out,” he tells her, and she smiles at him, watery but sweet.

“You know, we were talking a long time ago, and I asked if you thought that SHIELD keeps secrets because it’s the right thing to do. It turns out that they do.”

“Sometimes.”

She smiles and shakes her head.

“Never thought I’d see the day when AC is more cynical about big shadowy government organizations than I am.”

She says it as a joke, teasing evident in her tone, and he lets himself smile.

He watches her closely, as though examining her face will let him understand what’s going on underneath, and barely realizes that she’s doing the same. The moment is broken by a sharp intake of breath from Skye.

“Do you know how many foster families I had?” Her eyes are big and sad, and looking into them _hurts_.

“No.”

She pulls her laptop out of the bag on the floor, opens it, and clicks through several folders before presenting him with a photocopy of the last page of a notebook. On the left side of the screen is a wide-ruled page that's blank except for a few dark smudges. On the right is the inside back cover, which is littered with tally marks.  _Dozens_ of tally marks. The first several groups of five are placed tightly together in the same color, and he guesses she made those marks all at once to account for the homes she was in before she could write. The rest are more scattered, in different colors, some wispy strokes of a pencil and others so thick and dark they look more like blotches than lines. This is the quantification of the shadow protocol that made sure Skye was in three or four different foster homes every year, and even the tallies tell of an emotional toll that makes his heart ache.

“My journal. I stopped writing in it when I started having regular internet access, but I kept up the tallies. We all...we all did it, but I had more than anyone. A lot more.” She turns the screen back towards her and brushes her finger across one of the marks — he wonders if she knows which house that represents — before closing the laptop and putting it away. “Some people thought it was like a badge of honor, but...” The smile, the positive, joking attitude she’s been putting on, falls down a little.

It _hurts_ , this reminder of how much pain SHIELD caused this girl. He hates that he’s complicit in an organization that hurts people like this.

“But see,” she says, breaking into his thoughts, “you’re over there being all negative and sad and thinking SHIELD hurt me.”

“Didn’t we?”

“SHIELD _saved_ me.” She says the words like they’re so obvious, so true, and it makes a knot of tension in his gut release. “All of that,” she waves her hand toward the computer, “that was SHIELD saving my life. That was SHIELD doing something _good_.”

“That’s why I joined,” he tells her, even though she already knows it. “To help people. To do good.”

“I know.” She smiles at him, and scoots forward enough to take his hand. "And you do. You do that every day." He smiles at her careful reassurance. “You basically saved me, too.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “You saved yourself. This was never about saving you. Just...giving you a place.”

“A family.” She nods to herself, and when she looks back up, her expression is vulnerable. “This is the first place I ever felt wanted. Like I was special. Valuable. But it turns out that…”

“You’ve been special for your whole life.”

“Yeah, pretty much.” She smiles, and the sadness is still there, but so is a glow of happiness and goodness that he wishes he could bask in every day for the rest of his life.

“I could tell you were special right away,” he offers, his tone becoming flirty, and he squeezes her hand in his.

“You could, couldn’t you?" Her own flirty smile turns more serious. "I owe you so much for that. For believing in me.”

“No you don’t,” he answers. “You don’t owe me anything.”

Slowly, as though she's trying to give him adequate time to stop it, she uses the hand she's holding to pull him against her as she rolls onto her knees, engulfing him in a hug. On her knees, she’s taller than he is, and his face fits into the curve of her neck so that every inhalation is full of the scent of her. Her body is soft and warm against his, and he wraps his arms around her waist, holding her against him as she tightens her grip around his shoulders. The last time they hugged, he had still been lying to her about her origins, and it feels good to sink into her touch now that she knows everything.

When she starts to pull back, he's sad to feel her slip away from him, but she grips his hand again as she re-positions herself on the bed. Her hold is tight, like she expects him to pull away, but he happily slides his fingers between hers, bringing them palm to palm.

“I feel like..." She pauses and looks down at their hands before meeting his eyes again, her smile watery but real. "My story starts here, you know? This isn’t an end, it’s a beginning. It’s a beginning that’s hard, and it rewrites some of my past, and I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it, but...it’s a good thing.” 

He’s more than a little in awe of her, which must be written clearly on his face based on the smile she gives him as she continues:

“And I hope you find your own answers, AC, but whatever you find…”

“This is a new beginning to my story, too.”

“Exactly. Whatever’s hiding in the past...it’s not that it doesn’t matter. But there are other things that matter more. Like what we do now.”

“We?” It sounds entirely too hopeful to his own ears, especially because he doesn’t even know what he’s asking for, but she just smiles.

“Of course.”

He takes a deep breath and releases some of the tension that’s kept his shoulders in knots since he interrogated Dr. Streiten and finally got his file. It’s a good mantra, he thinks — what matters most is what we do now. Especially if 'we' involves Skye.

“Yeah.” He squeezes her hand.

“So on that note,” she tugs his hand as she starts up off the bed, letting him know that he’s supposed to follow. “Let’s get a drink.”

“You want to go to the Boiler Room?”

“Can we just stay here? I _know_ you just got a bottle of Woodford Reserve.”

He smiles up at her as he climbs off the bed.

“I’d like that.”

 


	13. T.R.A.C.K.S.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Skye plans her first mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene takes place before the briefing we see at the beginning of the episode. (Because Skye *totally* helped Coulson plan this mission. I feel like that's basically canon.)

“Do you mind…”

She looks hesitant as she walks into the office, and his eyes narrow as he examines her, trying to figure out what’s wrong.

“Mind what?”

“If I still work in here?”

“Why would I mind?” He says it easily, swallowing his pleasure at her presence and trying to put her at ease. He’d been disappointed this morning when she set up her laptop in FitzSimmons’s lab area now that she didn’t need him nearby to approve internet access. The truth is, he likes having her nearby — likes the easy way they work together, likes being able to look up and see her, likes bouncing ideas of of her, likes being her sounding board, too.

“Good, then.” She smiles, and he watches as she folds herself into her chair. And it is _her_ chair. May sits in the wooden one. Ward, who rarely comes in, stands and paces. FitzSimmons almost never come in here.

She looks up at him as she sits with her laptop in her lap, and it’s the uncharacteristically shy look in her face that clues him in to the fact that he’s been staring. Lately, it feels like he lives for the moments when their eyes meet — when he feels completely attuned to her — and he’s relatively certain that it’s a mutual thing. But moments like this one, and the memories of May rolling her eyes, sometimes make him stop short at the idea that it’s one-sided.

Whatever _it_ is.

And then there’s the fact that whether _it_ is one-sided or not makes little difference to whether it’s something he could ever act on.

They work quietly together for over an hour before Skye’s excited voice cuts into his concentration.

“I found something.”

It takes a moment for the words to sink in.

“Quinn? You found Quinn?”

She laughs at his enthusiasm and shoots the data she’s looking at from her own tablet to his.

“Not Quinn, but close.” She starts talking as Coulson scans over the report. “He made this big purchase from Cybertek last week.”

“Ten million dollars? Big seems like an understatement.”

“He made this _really big_ purchase from Cybertek last week.” She smiles cheekily at him as raises his eyebrows in faux-exasperation.

“You’re thinking if we track this package, we find Ian Quinn?”

“Basically. It works, right?”

“Maybe." He nods, starting to feel her excitement. "How is it being shipped?”

“This is the best part — it’s a _train_. It’s being shipped across Spain in a train with a whole security force.”

“Definitely important, then.”

She nods, excitement at having found a break clearly bubbling under the surface. He keeps himself calm, though, and asks the questions that need to be asked.

“Would we have to board the train?”

“I think so. Cybertek packages are sort of weird, right? They’re shipped in special boxes that block xrays and infrared light.” He looks down at his tablet where Skye has brought up information on the alloy used in their packing materials and has a moment of being incredibly impressed. She thought of everything. “So that makes it hard to track the contents of a package. But at the same time, I’m thinking that if you happened to be looking at a stack of boxes with an xray or infrared camera, you just have to look for the box that you can’t see through.”

“Getting on board the train would require cooperation with Spanish police forces,” he ponders out loud.

“So, do you think you can convince them?”

“I can ask nicely.”

“Just asking? Does that usually work?”

“I do alright.”

He smirks at her and Skye grins, shaking her head.

"I take it charm school covered local law enforcement in addition to the ladies?" 

He just raises his eyebrows in amusement, and Skye laughs.

“So,” she breaks off her laughter. “We get on the train to track the package, but in order to find it, someone is going to have to look at whatever car its in through infrared glasses.”

“So someone had to stake out the cargo hold of the train.”

“Yeah, is there a way we can do that?”

“Maybe from on top,” he answers.

“Can Ward and May stake out the roof of a train?”

“It’s something we _all_ train for in operations.” He’s almost offended that she forgets that he’s trained, too.

Her eyebrows raise almost to her hairline, and her whole expression is unbearably amused.

“You’ve practiced running around on top of a speeding train?”

“It’s a useful exercise in speed, agility, and stability,” he defends.

“It’s so you can feel like James Bond,” she corrects, and he almost laughs.

“May could pull that off, though. If she got on in a private car where she could climb out a window with some infrared goggles…”

“But she’d need to know where to go, right?”

“Yes. Someone would have to do a tail from the inside to mark the car.”

“What if we managed to mark some of the guards? Like, slipped them coins? Or...something?”

“FitzSimmons could work that out,” he nods.

“And then we’d need communications through the train to keep an eye on guards and relay information about the package, right?”

“Sounds good.”

“I’m thinking three teams — Ward and May can take care of tracking the package. You and Simmons can mark the guards. Fitz and I can run the communications.”

“Excellent.” He smiles at her as she starts charting out teams and making a list of everything they’ll need. “Why don’t you talk to FitzSimmons about the tech we’ll need?”

“Did we just totally plan a mission?”

“The bare bones of it, yes.”

“No offense, but that was way easier than I thought it would be.”

“Talk to me after we’ve gotten the local police on board and FitzSimmons have a plan for the tech.”

“Hmm.”

She grins at him as she turns to go talk to the science team, and he stops her at the door.

“Good work, Skye. Very good catch.”

“Thanks.”

They share a collegial nod, and then she disappears out the door while he goes to work greasing the wheels of the police force in Spain. 


	14. TAHITI

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson keeps vigil by Skye's bed until she wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene takes place between TAHITI and Yes Men.

After the injection of the GH-325, his vigil lasts over 30 hours. He watches Simmons come and go, taking blood samples and refilling an IV bag. He watches Fitz sit next to him, but spend most of his time actually watching Simmons. He watches May come in and stand quietly in the corner, dividing her attention equally between Skye and his hunched form. He watches Ward in the window, looking in at Skye with a depth of guilt and anger that even Coulson — whose guilt and anger is practically bubbling on the surface of his skin — doesn’t understand.

He moves from Skye’s side for only a few minutes at a time by necessity, doesn’t sleep, can’t fathom the idea of food.

When she finally wakes up, his tired face is the first thing she sees.

“Hi, AC,” she greets him, her voice too quiet, and it takes him several seconds to realize that it’s real.

“You’re awake.” His voice is quiet joy and disbelief, and Skye smiles at him with something almost like pity.

“Are you okay? What…” She notices the rest of her surroundings, then, and her face clouds over.

“You remember?”

“Ian Quinn.”

“Shot you. Yes.”

“Mike Peterson was there.”

“What?” His eyes widen in horror, and Skye shakes her head.

“He was in this tube, burned really badly and missing a leg. The package was a metal leg for him."

"A metal leg?"

"Really high tech. It looked like magic. And...he said he had orders from the Clairvoyant.”

“You mean like Akela Amador had orders?”

“Maybe. I just mean...he was clearly…”

“Being used as a weapon?”

“Yeah.”

She’s silent for a long time, staring off into space, and he wishes he had the energy to care about Mike Peterson more. But right now, the only thing on his mind is Skye. 

“How are you? Are you in pain?”

“Not so much.” It seems to strike her then how strange that is. “Why am I not in more pain?” She struggles a bit with the blankets tucked around her until she can raise the hospital gown Simmons has put her into enough to see the wounds on her stomach, above a pair of white cotton briefs. The entry points are a livid red, but also completely healed over.

“How long has it been?”

“Two days.”

She blinks twice in disbelief.

“ _How_ is that even possible?”

"Project TAHITI," he answers, not even meeting her eyes. 

" _What_?" 

"When I died, they didn't send me to Tahiti. They...did things to me. They brought me back to life and rewrote my memories to make me think I was in Tahiti." 

“I was...dead?”

“No.” He shakes his head, but he can tell by the look on her face that she’s having a hard time believing him. “It was close. Too close.”

"So you didn't rewrite my memories?" 

"No, just...the primary drug. We were able to find the facility and..." 

"And you gave it to me."

"Yes."

"And it just...healed me?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"We don't know. Simmons doesn't know. I'm sorry, Skye. I'm so sorry." 

Their eyes meet, hers wide and worried, and then her hand shoots out to find his.

“You _saved_ me.”

“I tried,” he whispers.

“Seems like you succeeded.” She smiles and squeezes his hand, and he swallows.

“I’m not sure, yet.”

“How can you not be sure? I’m here, right? And healed?”

She brings his hand to rest on her bare stomach, just above the scarring wounds. He nods and closes his eyes, taking in the feeling of Skye — alive and talking and being herself, whole and warm and breathing — under his palm.

Simmons walks in then, and Coulson’s impulse to pull his hand away is stayed by Skye’s grip.

“You’re awake! I was hoping it would happen soon.”

“I just opened my eyes. Coulson told me it’s been two days?”

“Almost thirty-four hours since we got the serum in you. Twelve before that.”

Coulson can read the fatigue on Simmons’s face and in every line of her body.

“You did an excellent job,” he praises her, and earns a weak smile in return, which fades when she looks down to where his and Skye’s hands are intertwined on her stomach. Coulson thinks, at first, that it’s their hands, but Simmons only comments on the wounds.

“It’s startling how well that’s healed, isn’t it? I took off the dressings a few hours ago. They weren’t doing much once the wounds were closed.”

“Yeah, I’m having a hard time believing this is real, right now.”

“That’s not uncommon for someone waking up from a traumatic injury even under normal circumstances,” Simmons tells her, smiling. “Otherwise, you feel okay?”

“I think so. It feels like I got punched in the stomach when I breathe, but...it's not too bad.”

“I’m going to keep an eye on you for a few days...just to monitor the healing progress and check blood samples.” Her friendly bedside demeanor sort of slips as she looks at Skye with something almost approaching fear. “I don’t really understand what’s happened here.”

“And you’d feel better keeping me in your sight until you know?” Skye says it with good humor, and she and Simmons smile at each other, though Coulson can guess exactly how well Skye is going to take to a week of bedrest.

“Can you give us just a moment, Jemma?” Coulson asks the question nicely, but it’s an order all the same, and Simmons takes it as such.

When she’s gone, he turns to Skye.

“I’m going to try to track down Fury and see if I can find some answers about what I gave you. For both of us, okay? You stay here and rest.”

“Do you think I’m in danger?”

He shakes his head slowly, but feels mostly lost.

“Not imminent danger, no. I just...I don’t know, yet.” Her hand grips his more tightly, pressing it into her stomach.

“I wish you’d wait for me.”

“I’m just going to arrange a few meetings. Nothing dangerous.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.” He smiles at her, more than a little charmed that she’s worried for him while she’s healing from gun shot wounds.

“And you’ll be back soon?”

“In a few days,” he promises.

She nods, but doesn’t release her grip on his hand. Slowly, Coulson leans forward and places a soft kiss on the hand holding his to her stomach, meeting her eyes as his lips meet her skin. He remembers swimming back to consciousness to the feel of her lips pressed to his hands, and does it again, pouring out his guilt and his anger and his joy that she is alive through the simple gesture.

Skye smiles at him, and he feels just bolstered enough to go out and find the answers they both need.

 


	15. Yes Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson and Skye compare battle scars. (Semi-public windowed room? What semi-public windowed room?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene is a continuation of Coulson and Skye's talk at the end of the episode. (Just...everyone else on the Bus is really, really busy and not coming near the medical pod.)

“So what’ll it be AC? What do we go after first?”

“The person responsible for this.” He points to her stomach. “I want to make him pay.”

“I get to make him pay, too, right?” Her smile is both serious and sweet, and he likes the reminder that they’re going to be in this together.

“I wouldn’t dream of stopping you.”

“Did you find Fury?”

“No. He clearly doesn’t want to be found.”

“But if he was the one in charge of Project TAHITI…”

“I’m not sure anyone else will be able to help with that part of things. All I’ve got is that if the Clairvoyant really knows as much as Raina seems to think he does…”

“...then finding him might give us some answers, too?”

He nods, and they stand for a few moments in quiet contemplation of each other.

“You look like you could use some sleep,” she tells him in a quiet voice, and he smiles even though he wants to cry.

“I’m not the one who got shot.”

“Yeah, but see, I’ve had more than enough sleep since it happened.”

He closes his eyes, almost upset at how easily Skye can make light of her near death. It had been one of the most harrowing experiences of his SHIELD career, and his career so far has involved losing more people than he cares to think about. Hell, his career has involved his own death.

“You’re okay?”

Her eyes turn soft, her whole expression almost pitying, at his question. In answer, she shifts on the table and raises her shirt up, showing him the scars. They are less red than they were even four days ago; rough indentations in the otherwise smooth, soft skin of her belly.

“Barely even hurts anymore. But I guess the miracle drug doesn’t take care of scarring, huh?”

“No,” he answers, thinking of his own chest scar — much more livid pink that he thinks Skye’s will be, but then Loki’s scepter _exited_ through his chest. “It doesn’t.”

“So you have…?”

“Yeah.”

He’s not surprised when her right hand extends and lands on his chest, feeling the area out with soft, exploratory touches. He steps closer, consciously allowing _and extending_ the moment of intimacy, and she shifts enough that he finds himself standing between her legs.

He can tell the exact moment when she notices the protrusion of scar tissue, and she places her palm across it gently, as though she’s trying to soothe it.

Coulson looks down, not meeting her eyes as she touches him on what he can’t help but think of as his weakest spot. As comfortable as he’s always felt with his own body, the presence of his scar and the meaning of it — of his mortality, of his stupidity, of the fact that he let himself get tricked — has made him hate taking his shirt off for any longer than the span of a shower.

“Show me?”

He swallows and looks up at her, confused and vulnerable.

“Come on. I showed you mine.” She smiles, trying to make it something light, but he can also see how much it means to her. He thinks that she wants a tangible display of his trust, and it’s the fact that he _does_ trust her that makes him nod slowly. He trusts her _a lot_ , he realizes, because May is the only other person who has seen it since he woke up, and May is one of the few people he has ever _really_ trusted with his life. (And that relationship — the one where they have each seen each other at their most vulnerable — that took _years_ of development.) Still, his eyes fall from hers as he complies, unable to meet her gaze.

He slips off his jacket and his tie before he begins moving his fingers down the buttons on the front of his shirt, starting at his collar. Skye’s gentle hands move out of his way but hover at his waist, and when he has the shirt unbuttoned, she helps him slip it off of his shoulders. Her hands brushing across his torso feel too good, and he shudders at the tender touch — the most intimate he’s had since well before he died.

Standing in front of her in an undershirt, he feels a flash of shame — partly at the surge of arousal and partly at his own vulnerability — and hesitates to remove his last protective layer. She doesn’t let him stop, though, and it’s her hands that untuck the white shirt and begin pushing it over his belly and up his chest.

“Skye,” he whispers her name as she exposes his scar, though he’s not exactly sure why, except that her name comforts him. She doesn’t push his shirt up any further than is needed to lay her hand across the gnarled, pink patch of skin, her other gripping his waist as though she fears he might pull away.

“Coulson,” she calls his name, and he finally looks at her, making eye contact for the first time since he started stripping. He’s shocked at what he sees there — closer to admiration than pity, closer to desire than disgust — and he takes an involuntary step closer to her.

She smiles at him, then, and releases her grip on his hip in order to catch hold of his hand and bring it to her belly, slipping it under her shirt.

“We match,” she tells him, still smiling like it’s a good thing.

Their eyes lock for what seems like an eternity, and for the first time Coulson consciously thinks about kissing her. It would be so _easy_ to lean forward and press his lips to hers, and he’s certain that she would respond, that she wants it. Concerns about coercive or inappropriate relationships, worries about what others would say, the fleeting thought that he is old enough to be Skye’s father...those don’t matter when she looks at him like she _wants_ him.

Her eyes soon turn down, though, as a blush spreads across her cheeks, and she clears her throat.

“It’s a reminder, I guess,” she whispers, and his thoughts are pulled from kissing back to their shared scars.

“They’re a reminder of my weakness,” he tells her, and in truth, he thinks that _both_ of their scars are a reminder of his weakness.

She looks up at him then, blush gone from her cheeks and her eyes serious.

“That’s the wrong way to think about it,” she tells him, as though she’s correcting a child. “It’s proof of how _strong_ you are.” She pushes on the scar tissue, her whole hand pressing into his chest.

“But yours…”

“If you’re about to suggest that my scars say _anything_ about you, we might have a problem.” Her face is dead serious, and he feels more than a little ashamed of himself. “I made a choice. Maybe it was the wrong choice…”

“No,” he answers. “You made the best choice you could. Besides, you didn’t get shot because of the choice you made, you got shot because the Clairvoyant new that I’d never let you die.” It’s like she can read his worry over that because she rolls her eyes.

“If the Clairvoyant knows anything, then he knows that you’d never let _any_ of us die.”

He nods. It’s true that he would have fought for anyone on his team, but he also thinks the Clairvoyant is damn smart to know how strongly he feels about Skye. He almost wonders if the Clairvoyant understands how he feels for Skye better than he does.

“We survived,” she tells him, eyes gentle again. “That’s what these are.” Her right hand presses into his chest as the left presses his hand to her stomach. “They are us surviving, even when things are done to us that we can’t control. They’re a reminder that we get to keep going, AC.”

“What matters is what we do now.” It feels like ages ago but also yesterday that Skye told him that.

“You _do_ listen.” She grins at him, and he smiles back.

Slowly, Coulson takes another step forward, pressing further into the V of her legs, and wraps his arms around her. She responds easily, letting his shirt slip back down his torso and wrapping her arms low around his waist. They embrace for a blissful few seconds, Skye’s head tucked under his chin, and he presses a kiss to her hair.

When he pulls back, he grins at her and grabs his shirt from the table where Skye had tossed it and begins to re-dress.

“I know what step one is.” 

"Oh?"

"I've just got to make some arrangements with the academy." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coulson's first step is further elaborated in the next chapter...


	16. The End of the Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Skye earns her SHIELD badge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene takes place pre-episode, and is suggested (maybe?) by Coulson saying that Skye passed all her SHIELD tests with flying colors (for Level One, yes we know Agent Hand). 
> 
> I was stupid and looked at a pro-Ward blog where I read about how people who hate on Ward are horrible because they're calling an actor(?) a Nazi. (Logic! Some people does not has!) Anyways...this happened as a direct result of reading pro-Ward stuff. Because Ward's jealous protective misogynistic crap made him wrong for Skye WAY before he made *active* choices to do and say *horrible* things in the service of a Nazi organization.

Coulson, Ward, and May stand up high, looking down on a what is more or less a concrete maze.

Below, Skye warily peeks around a corner, looking for a potential enemy. The enemy forces are wearing dark gray jumpsuits, making them blend too well into the concrete and shadows, and when Coulson spots one sneaking up on her, he has to bite his tongue to keep from calling out.

He feels Ward tense up next to him, and turns in time to see him open his mouth to yell down to her, but May punches him in the shoulder before he can. Coulson bites back a smile as May glares at Ward, but frowns when she turns the same glare at him.

“Skye is more than capable of doing this without you two being paternalistic idiots. If you can’t keep quiet, wait in the damn car,” she whispers, her voice barely carrying to the two of them, but her anger is palpable.

Coulson feels a little shamed — he _knows_ Skye can do this, it’s why he had insisted that it was time for these tests — but the memory of her lifeless body in his arms is still too real. The sight of someone sneaking up on her with a gun, even when the gun is just a light taser, is almost unbearable. Seeing her performance today, though, is a good reminder that Skye can take care of herself.

He nods at May once, acknowledging his stupidity, but Ward clenches his jaw and looks annoyed.

Below, Skye tenses as the sneaking assailant gets close, then quickly disarms him and drops him to the ground. Another man approaches from her right, and Skye quickly flips him over her head, using her own body as the fulcrum point. Ward’s mouth drops open in surprise, but May smiles proudly.

“Time!” Agent Maxwell calls. “Excellent job, Skye,” Coulson hears her say before she gestures up to him, inviting the three of them to come down. Together, they step onto the nearby elevator, and when they get off, Skye is beaming under Agent Maxwell’s praise. When Coulson meets Skye's eyes, the smile seems to get impossibly bigger. Maxwell steps out of the way to record the scores, leaving Skye to greet the three of them.

“Great job,” he’s surprised to hear May be the first to say. She pushes past him and Ward, and he hears a quiet conversation between her and Skye about the flip move she had used to disarm her final opponent.

“I know you didn’t learn that from Ward,” she whispers, conspiratorially, and Skye nods.

“That one was definitely yours. Did I do it right?”

“Very well. It was impressive. I can teach you low kicks, too, that would fit well in your defensive style.”

They’ve gotten closer, he knows, since Skye rescued him, but he didn’t realize that Skye had approached May for fighting technique. It goes a ways towards explaining why May is no longer interested in his gloating over having found her — she’s more interested in Skye now, more interested in her promise as an agent. And he’s found them sitting quietly together in the cockpit on more than a few occasions.

May turns away from Skye and sizes up both him and Ward with an expression of wary amusement on her face before nodding at him and heading towards the car.

He and Ward step forward in unison to congratulate Skye, and then stop, as though they're not sure who should go first. There’s a palpable awkwardness that Coulson doesn’t quite understand, but it is cut when Skye strides over to them and lays a hand on his arm. Ward narrows his eyes at the gesture, and Coulson suddenly gets it.

Skye is buzzing, though, nearly jumping up and down, and whatever is going on between him and Ward is less important than her.

“You were excellent,” Coulson tells her, and Skye grins widely.

“Agent Maxwell said it was a perfect score.”

“No major tactical errors,” Ward says, smiling down at her. “I think you’re officially cleared for fieldwork, rookie.”

“Thanks to my awesome SO,” she replies turning a grin at him, “and my super awesome team leader.” She squeezes his arm at that.

Coulson smiles at her when their eyes meet, completely charmed by her enthusiasm and the way she practically bounces on her toes.

“I think FitzSimmons have broken out their stash of beer to celebrate,” Ward tells her.

“I bought some Garrison Brother’s, too,” Coulson adds, feeling suddenly childish — like he’s trying to outdo Ward. He wasn’t, of course, when he bought it. He was just looking for something she would probably like, and he has learned pretty quickly that Skye is a bourbon girl and something of a connoisseur of all varieties of Texas-produced alcohol.

“You bought me Texas bourbon?”

“Special reserve,” he adds, watching her face light up.

“You bought me _the best_ Texas bourbon? Oh, AC, I think I love you.” She says the words playfully, flirtatiously, in a way that makes him nearly blush. Ward’s jaw tightens, though, and Skye must notice because there’s a long, awkward silence, and she lets her hand slip off his arm.

“I didn’t know you had done any training with May,” Ward says, his tone of voice mildly confrontational. Skye’s raised eyebrows say she doesn’t like his tone, but she just speaks normally.

“I thought it would be helpful to get some tips from a woman,” Skye answers, shrugging her shoulders. “I can’t lift as much as you can and I have less body weight to throw around, so I figured she could help me with modifying some of the moves you taught me.”

“You could have told me you needed more help.” He sounds hurt, and Coulson has to hold back an eyeroll.

“It was good thinking and good work,” he cuts in. Ward’s jealousy frustrates him — it’s everything he’s feared about where their relationship might go — but he doesn’t have the time or patience to hear it. And it eats at him that later, he knows Skye will be the one to seek out Ward and smooth this over.

For now, though, Skye smiles at his praise, and as the three walk back to the Bus, she strides confidently in front of them.

He isn’t sure if she fully understands that she’s now officially qualified for her Level One badge — that’s the real nature of the party. If he had the clout — if Director Fury were answering his calls — he would push to test her up beyond Level One, but Agent Hand has made it clear that it’s not in the cards.

He’ll be getting a group of higher ups together in the next two days for a plan to take down the Clairvoyant — Skye has helped plan that part — and the badge, the official announcement, will be a nice surprise for her. She has more than earned it, by his counting, but it feels good to be able to arrange something that he knows will mean so much to her. And he’s also looking forward to having Skye _finally_ officially welcomed into the SHIELD family.

  



	17. Turn, Turn, Turn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson needs some comfort in the Wake of HYDRA's reveal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene is post-episode. I'm sort of assuming that the team (minus Ward) stayed at the Hub for at least one night, and probably slept in rooms there, since the Bus was full of broken glass?

He raps twice against the door of the small room — it looks like more of a holding cell, almost — where Skye is staying overnight while they get the Hub in order and fix up the Bus. She opens the door and almost manages to smile at him.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

He glances down at the small table near the door and sees her badge there, open and shining gold in the light.

“I never got the chance to really congratulate you.”

Her eyes follow his to her badge, and she does manage a smile, but it’s crooked and sad.

“I guess it’s not worth that much anymore, is it?”

It breaks his heart a little, to have Skye lose this. It breaks his heart that they’ve both lost it.

“It’s still worth something to me,” he promises.

“Me, too.” She looks embarrassed and sad to admit it.

They stand together in the open doorway, the silence between them turning unusually awkward. He's not sure why it feels wrong, except that it's a strange place and they are both wearing standard issue sweats and t-shirts thanks to the piles of broken glass littering the bunks of the Bus. It's starting to occur to him that he should leave her alone, that she might not want company at all, but then she steps back and draws him into the room.

“I just wanted to check that you’re…”

“Okay?” She finishes for him, voice mocking the very idea that ‘okay’ is a state they could possibly be in.

He watches as she crosses the room folds herself up at the head of the bed, almost curling around a pillow.

“Skye?”

“I was hoping we were going to learn something when we caught the Clairvoyant, you know?”

“Yes, I do.”

He hesitates, still standing by her door. There’s a desk and chair in the room, so there’s no reason for him to sit on the bed with her except that he wants to. Actually, he’d like very much to take comfort in her right now, in whatever capacity she will have him. But something is off about her body language, so he instead walks to the desk chair and sits down. She watches from the bed, and he could swear she looks hurt by his choice of seat.

“I feel bad that I’m even thinking about it because obviously there’s bigger stuff going on.” She rolls her eyes at herself, and Coulson shakes his head.

“You don’t have to feel bad. We were supposed to get answers, and it’s disappointing that there aren’t any.”

She nods once, and looks sadly down into her lap. He gets where she’s coming from — he really _really_ does, because if anything he wants answers about Project TAHITI even more than she does. Between striking out with "The Clairvoyant," the end of SHIELD, and the death of Nick Fury, he imagines none of those answers will be coming any time soon. And it _does_ feel selfish to be thinking about the way that SHIELD’s collapse affects him personally, but on the other hand, it’s a deeply personal loss.

“Are _you_ okay?” She turns his question back onto him, and he shrugs and shakes his head. It occurs to him, then, that he came here less to check on her and more because he really needed someone — Skye, specifically Skye — to ask. 

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Is May…” She doesn’t finish the question, like she doesn’t even know what she means to ask. It feels like days ago that they had been standing on the Bus, pointing guns at her. Not earlier that night.

“She’s not HYDRA. But that doesn’t mean I can trust her,” he answers.

“You guys have been friends forever, haven’t you?”

“Pretty much.”

He doesn’t know what to do now. Either HYDRA or May’s surveillance of him would have been absolutely crushing on its own, but having the two of them coincide...having the two of them coincide with the betrayal of agents he had counted as friends… It’s too much.

“Come here,” Skye says, calling him out of his thoughts. He looks up to see her pat the bed next to her and nods, crosses the room to take a seat.

He’s _numb_ , he realizes. He’s numb and Skye might be the last person on earth that he wholly trusts, so when she reaches out for him, he falls easily into her embrace. He moves with her — lets her move him as needed — until he is lying across the bed on his side and she is spooned behind him, her front plastered to his back, one arm wrapped protectively around his chest and resting on his heart.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. He takes a shuddering breath, and is surprised to realize he’s crying. “I’m so sorry.”

She rubs soft circles on his chest, and he thinks he feels her pressing soft kisses into the back of his head as she murmurs her regrets. He can't remember a time someone comforted him like this. In truth he can't remember a time he was this vulnerable to someone, a time there was someone in his life with whom he had shared so much. 

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that — thinks that maybe he dozes a little — but it’s some while later, when his eyes are dry, that he finally turns around in her arms. She doesn’t release him, instead letting him wrap an arm around her middle as he faces her. When they lock eyes, he’s relieved that she doesn’t look awkward or embarrassed for him.

“Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me. You just looked like you needed…” She doesn’t finish the sentence — he needed a hug, he needed comfort, he needed _her_.

“I did.”

"I'm glad I could help."

"What do  _you_  need?" He feels bad that he hasn't really asked her that, that she probably needs more than he's given her tonight.

"This was pretty great," she answers, looking embarrassed at the admission. It's almost involuntary when he squeezes her to him, pressing their bodies together in something much more intimate than a hug.

"If you ever need anything," he starts, but cuts himself off. "You can always come to me. You know that, right?" 

"Yeah, I do." She meets his eyes for a flash before turning her gaze back down. "You can do the same, you know?" 

He does know, which is why he came to her room tonight without really thinking about it. 

“Skye,” he breathes her name. “You’re the person I trust most in the world.”

“That’s always been true on my end,” she answers with a self-deprecating shrug. He feels a pang at that — that she imagines that kind of imbalance in their relationship.

"Today...HYDRA...has nothing to do with it." He shakes his head. "I trusted you back when my conscious brain knew it was a bad idea."

"Maybe your unconscious brain is just really, really smart." She smiles up at him, locking eyes again.

"It definitely is," he agrees. 

She squeezes him, then, and burrows her head under his chin. He holds her until she yawns into his chest, her whole body heaving against him, triggering him to yawn in return. He can't actually remember the last time he slept. 

“I should go to bed.” He says the words to himself almost more than to her — a reminder that he should leave, that he should not fall asleep here, that he should not be seen leaving her room in the morning.

She nods into his chest and starts to untangle her limbs from his; everywhere she was touching feels suddenly cold and bereft.

“Goodnight,” she whispers as she lets him go, and he smiles down at her, leaving a kiss on her forehead.

“Get some sleep. You and I are going to try to get this place in shape tomorrow morning while FitzSimmons get the Bus ready to go.”

She nods and watches as he pads out of her room and down the hall to his own. 


	18. Providence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson and Skye talk about hunches and flying blindly to a secret base. (aka: In which I cheat and this is actually a scene from 'The Only Light in the Darkness.')

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene is, rather obviously, in 'The Only Light in the Darkness,' immediately after Skye gets her lanyard and before Coulson starts prepping Trip and FitzSimmons for their mission.

“How’d it go?”

She waves her lanyard at him in answer, and he smiles.

“Not quite as good as the badge,” she tells him, joking even though sadness seeps into her words.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Not your fault.” She shrugs and smiles before plopping herself on the couch next to him. “Ward’s starting his test now. Everyone else is done, right?”

There’s a...niggle. That’s all he can call it. A few days ago, he had locked Ward up for murdering a paraplegic man in cold blood. He shakes it off, though.

“Right. Everyone did fine. I’m almost feeling cautiously optimistic.”

She laughs and bumps her shoulder against his.

“You should be. Your hunch panned out, right?”

“I’m not sure it was strong enough to call it a hunch. I’m afraid it was just me doing...what I thought Fury would want me to do.”

“You could do worse. I mean, you and I both know that whatever stupid decisions he’s made, whatever lies he’s told, Fury wasn’t Hydra. He wouldn’t have been taken out if he was.”

“But I had no indication that this was him and not…”

“You had a hunch.” She shrugs.

“And you’re going to be okay with following me across the globe on hunches?”

“ _I’m_ here because of one of your hunches.” She smiles at him, sort of crooked and self-deprecating. “I tend to think you have pretty good ones.”

“At least one, anyways.”

He smiles at her fondly, and she blushes and ducks her head down, dropping her eyes from his. He lays his head back on the couch.

“So I’ll stay here and start running names, looking for escapees from the Fridge?”

“Yes,” he answers, looking at the ceiling. “Even if we can’t get to them now, I’d at least like to be keeping tabs on them. It gives us the best shot of intervening quickly later.”

“Do you think May’s right? That it’s…”

He looks over at her, sees her pensive face, not questioning his leadership but trying to take in all the information. Coming to her own judgments. He likes the way she does that. Likes the questions she asks and the way she asks them. He looks back at the ceiling.

“Meant to be a diversion?” She nods. “Probably.” He sighs and runs a hand over his face.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t go after them,” she fills in his argument for him. “They’re using our desire to help people against us, aren’t they?”

“Yeah. They are.”

“But that doesn’t mean we can abandon that goal. Then we’d be…”

“...no better than they are?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s…” He clears his throat, uncomfortable with telling her this for reasons he can’t quite explain. “Daniels, the one I want to go after first. He’ll go after Audrey. She was my…”

“Your girlfriend? From before? Who thinks you're dead?”

“That’s the one. We met because I was assigned to her case.”

“And he’s really bad?”

“The last time we caught up with him, he had killed at least twenty people, probably more. And that was in just a few months in Portland.”

“Geez. No wonder she liked you. Mister Knight in Shining Armor, huh?”

She’s teasing, trying to lighten the situation, but it doesn’t make him feel lighter.

“Am I supposed to tell her? That I’m...alive?”

Skye is silent for several seconds, and he turns his head to look at her again. She’s staring at him, weighing several options.

“I guess it depends on what you want? I mean, do you…”

“No,” he answers.

She nods.

“I think it's wrong that SHIELD lied to her. But then...she’s mourned you, right? If you told her you were alive…”

“But doesn’t she deserve to know the truth?”

“You know I think she should know. But you need to make sure that telling her isn't...bad for her.”

“I do know,” he agrees. He imagines that the appearance of someone that you had mourned and put to rest could be traumatic, but he's uncomfortable making that judgement on behalf of someone else.

“It's a hard question,” Skye admits. “But you'll figure out right thing.”

“How do you know that?”

“Like I said...you have good hunches.”

“Thank you.” He's not sure if it's for trusting him, or following him, or believing in him, but Skye just smiles.

“Why aren't you thinking about rekindling your relationship with her?” He can't read the expression on her face, and it makes him nervous.

“When I was with her, I think I was considering leaving SHIELD. I was thinking about having a normal life.”

“With SHIELD gone, now, you could do that, couldn't you?”

“Perhaps,” he admits, not thinking too hard about the question of _what next_. “But normal life doesn't hold the allure it used to.”

“Normal life is overrated,” Skye agrees. “You're way too cool for a house in the suburbs, AC.”

He smiles at that, and is disappointed when she stands up.

“If Eric is done with Ward, I’m going to bully him into letting me start tracking the Fridge, okay? Be safe.”

He nods his agreement and watches her walk from the room.

“I never thanked you for standing up for me.” He hears Trip’s voice in the hallway moments later.

“Oh, you don't need to thank me. I told Agent Coulson that you were trustworthy because I believed it objectively. I didn’t do it as a favor or because I like you.” Simmons’s voice catches as she starts backtracking. “Which isn’t to say that I  _don’t_  like you because I do. I actually find that I like you...very, um, very much."

“I’m glad the feeling’s mutual, then.” 

He can hear the amusement in Trip's voice, but whatever Simmons is about to say gets cut off when they enter the room and see their boss on the couch. 

“Agent Coulson! Hello! We were just...we were…” Simmons starts to panic, and then glances over her shoulder at Trip’s grinning face, from which she seems to draw strength. She takes a deep breath, and immediately sounds more like the professional Dr. Simmons he's seen so much of in the past few weeks. “We were coming to see when you want to get going. I think Fitz should be done with his lighting modifications.”

Trip looks proud and charmed by Simmons’s performance, and Coulson smirks at the both of them. 

"Please check on Fitz's progress, and I'll meet you in the lab area in five minutes." They both nod and turn back out of the room.

"Look at you, keeping your calm under pressure," Trip teases her, his voice soft and barely carrying back to Coulson's ears. "Now you just have to learn to lie." 

"I can lie quite convincingly when it's part of a character history," she defends herself, but Trip's returning volley in unintelligible as they walk further away. 

He's always been wary of relationships developing within his teams, especially when it sounds like Trip and Simmons instead of Ward and May, but he finds himself smiling at the idea of them. 


	19. The Only Light in the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson gets introspective (and a little meta) about Audrey and, of course, Skye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene is less a scene and more Coulson's thoughts throughout watching Audrey. (Confronting the specter of his past self.)
> 
> My assumption here -- unstated because he doesn't know at this point in the narrative -- is that Coulson was dating Audrey during the period when he was involved with Project TAHITI. So the past-self he's judging is one who's haunted by this big traumatic thing he's *done to other people*, and this relationship was part of that self. (Because this relationship was portrayed as kind of icky, IMO, and Amy Acker is a goddess who deserves better than a flat character that swoons over a white knight, even one played by Clark Gregg).

The thing he loved most about his relationship with Audrey, he thinks, as he listens to her talk and watches her through darkened glass, was that she saw him as a hero.

And it’s strange — he still hasn’t wrapped his head around it — but he doesn’t exactly understand why he needed that validation so badly at that point in his life. It’s hazy, all part of the realization that he’s not quite himself.

So as he watches her now, it feels hollow because he doesn’t think that he was ever able to offer her very much beyond making her feel safe from a lone man on the index, and he’s no longer in a place where he wants what she gave him. That doesn’t mean it was a bad relationship, or at least he doesn’t think so, but it informs his reasons for not telling her now.

Audrey _should_ finish mourning the Phil Coulson she knew and move on, because whoever he is now isn’t that man. And when he tells her in the future — and it is _when_ he tells her because it's the right thing to do and he knows it — it should be when he's no more than a memory to her, when she can forgive him for becoming a different man as much as lying to her.  

As he looks at her, it feels like mourning himself — his old self — and there’s melancholy there (a brief wish that he could be the person who made this gorgeous, passionate woman light up), but also something else.

It’s sort of startling to realize that he might actually like himself better now. He doesn’t know _how_ he could like himself better now, given that May has been spying on him out of fear that he’s compromised, but it feels true.

The story Audrey tells, of him rescuing her and being her knight in shining armor, it sits wrong in his gut. He knows it’s true, intellectually, but something in him says that he just wouldn’t _do that_. He wouldn’t start something with a young woman looking at him for protection. He wouldn’t start something purely so he could feel better about himself. So he could feel heroic.

And it all works itself back around to Skye because of course it does. Every damn thing seems to work back around to Skye lately.

Part of the reason, maybe _most_ of the reason, that he’s not concerned with being viewed as a hero anymore is her. And it’s not that Skye worships him, not that she sees him as a hero, but that she offers him a validation that is just...better. Maybe better than he’d ever known before his death. There’s a push and pull. There’s a challenge. There’s an impulse to dig up the best parts of himself — parts of himself that are as good as Skye is — and act only on them. He doesn’t need to be a hero because who he is now, the person he tries to be every day, is better. He’s less about the rules, less about being the company man, and more about doing _good_. He hopes.

It’s not all Skye, of course it’s not, but she’s part of it. A big part of it.

And on the way back to Providence, as he ignores the subtext of Fitz’s questioning, he thinks two things. One is that he needs to fix things with May, and practice the forgiveness and friendship rebuilding that he wants to see with Audrey. (He knows that is what Skye would do.) The other is that he should tell Skye how important she is to him.

 

***

 

Finding the base empty sits like a stone in his stomach, but it’s the footage of Skye leaving with Ward — holding hands — that greets him like a punch in the gut. And he likes to think it’s more than jealousy, more than feeling possessive about her, but he just... _knows_.

He knows immediately, and it’s almost funny because Skye would be the only one able to tell what he’s thinking, and she’s gone.

But he just... _knows_. 


	20. Nothing Personal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson and Skye have mutual freak outs and then finally smash their stupid sexy faces together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene starts at the end of the Lola action sequence, based on the assumption that 1) they probably weren't anywhere near the team, and 2) they both needed some time to freak out before rejoining the group.
> 
> How come AO3 offers me the "popular" tag "Poor Grant Ward" and not "Grant Ward is Evil" or "Grant Ward is a Nazi" or "Grant Ward is a horror movie villain" or "Grant Ward is a dickbag"? Could we make one of those a "popular" tag, please? Pretty please?

“Holy Crap.”

Her voice is hoarse from screaming, hair windblown around her face, and all he can do is offer her a weak smile as he hands the parking attendant some cash.

Coulson takes a deep breath and attempts to pull himself together. He’s done extensive drop training, but this fall was infinitely more terrifying than any parachute drop he’s done. The first time he jumped out of a plane — a plane that was flying much lower than the Bus was, he should note — he had pretty much been useless for half an hour after the rush of adrenaline wore off. But with a chute, most of that happens while drifting, when you don't have to use your legs anyways. He can only imagine how Skye feels, and is fairly impressed that she hasn’t lost her lunch.

It takes a few minutes before he decides he can probably walk, at which point he gets out of Lola and walks around to open Skye’s door. He grabs her backpack, tossing it over his shoulder, and then offers her a hand out of the car. When she stands, though, her knees immediately give out, and he wraps an arm tightly around her waist, holding her up against his body.

“Okay?” His voice is hoarse, too.

“I’m not sure,” she answers. “I feel kinda…”

“That’s the free fall,” he tells her, though that’s fairly obvious.

“Yeah, I…” She looks up at him and lets out something between a startled laugh and a sob, and he thinks that the brave face she’s put on today has just about reached its limit.

“I’m just going to get us off the street, okay? Somewhere private.”

She nods, but still looks entirely bewildered until he leans down and scoops her up into his arms.

“Wow, AC,” she teases, her voice breaking on his nickname. “Sweep a girl off her feet why don’t you?”

He lets out a laugh, but when he looks down, she’s buried her face in his shoulder.

“I might…” He feels her breath puffing against his neck as she talks. “I might freak out a little now. Or a lot.” She swallows and breathes deeply against him. “I’m pretty much about to freak out a lot. Just so you know.”

“That makes two of us,” he answers, and she nods. They’re silent as he carries her half a block. His back is starting to really feel the strain of holding her right around the time he sees a seedy-looking hourly motel. Given that he doesn’t have the slightest clue where he is or how he’s going to hook up with the rest of the team, he decides to get a room, just to give Skye — and himself — enough time to fall apart a little.

But he’d rather not go to the front desk while holding her, imagines the picture it would make — a disheveled man renting a room for a few hours while holding a sobbing girl half his age.

“Can you stand?”

“I don’t know,” she answers honestly. “Put me down over there,” she gestures to a planter, “and I’ll sit and wait for you, okay?”

He nods and sets her down to go get a room. When he returns, she doesn’t seem to see him at first. She’s staring into the distance, looking haunted, and he tries to catch her eye so that she doesn’t feel like he’s sneaking up on her.

“It’s just around the corner,” he tells her.

She nods and stands up, looking more solid, but still wobbly enough that he wraps an arm around her waist to steady her.

“Okay?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

The room is fine — not nearly as trashy as he had feared, though there is definitely a mirror on the ceiling. He sets her on the bed and then collapses next to her, wishing for another piece of furniture in the bare room. They’ve been plenty close before, but right now he wants to give her the option of having as much personal space as she needs. It’s a large bed, though, with enough room for them to each lean comfortably against the headboard, and Skye doesn’t seem bothered.

There are several moments of silence, during which he wonders whether he should talk first or invite her to, before her voice cuts through the quiet.

“I found Eric’s body. Ward had booby trapped the door, so that he could tell if someone else found him. Except that I was the only one there. I think that means that he set the trap so he'd know if he had to kill me.”

“But Ward didn’t know did he?”

“No. I reset the it.”

“That must have…” He comes up short on words because he’s sort of blown away by her resilience today. “To realize that someone wasn’t what you thought, but to still have the presence of mind to keep up the charade…”

“It’s not the first time someone wasn’t who I thought they were.” Her voice is flat, so flat it startles him, and he turns towards her, horrified at the implications.

“Skye…”

“It’s...the past, okay, AC?” She tries to smile, but a few tears leak out instead, and he reaches out to cradle her face in his right hand, brushing them away.

“Is this okay?”

She nods and leans into his hand, accepting his touch, before scooting towards him more and basically burying herself in his chest.

“Today was hard.” The words are quiet, muffled by his jacket, and such an incredible understatement that the absurdity almost makes him laugh. Instead, he runs a hand through her hair, smoothing the wind-blown strands and holding back the desire to wrap his arms around her.

“You were amazing,” he tells her.

“I wish I felt it. I keep thinking that… It was my fault that Ward got to Eric. I was trying to hack into NSA footage of the Fridge, to see if we could get a good look at the people escaping. He didn’t want to, but I…”

“That isn’t your fault,” he tells her, his voice sharper than he means for it to be. “I’m the one that chose to split up the team, and that decision made Koenig _and you_ easy targets.”

Skye pulls out of his embrace to meet his eye and gives him a small smile. “I guess the moral is that we shouldn’t blame anyone for Ward’s crimes except for Ward, huh?”

“Sure,” he answers, more because he doesn’t want her to blame herself than because he agrees about his own non-culpability.

“That’s not going to work,” she tells him. She turns fully toward him, eye to eye, face serious, and she sounds almost like her normal self. “Ward’s actions aren’t your fault.”

“But I suspected something was wrong after he shot Nash, and I didn’t do anything about it.”

“It would have been irresponsible of you to pursue that given everything that happened, and we both know it. He saved my life when things went to hell, and he passed Eric’s test.”

“He played the part well,” Coulson agrees.

“Really well. Today...the worst part...the _worst part_ ...was how much he just seemed like himself. But suddenly he wasn’t safe anymore. And everything about him that used to make me like him…” She shakes her head and looks like she might cry. “It was suddenly so _obvious_ that he’s evil. Everything about it made my skin crawl.”

He shudders at the sound of horror in her voice.

“I’m so sorry. Skye, I’m so sorry.” He puts his head in his hands.

“We...we kissed at the Hub.” He’s revolted by the idea of that — of Ward going through May and then Skye, of him doing so under false pretenses — and can only imagine how awful she must feel about it. “I wasn’t... I mean, way back before he and May were sleeping together, I offered to talk if he wanted to. And he told me that he went to her instead of me because with me it would have...meant something. But I only offered to talk, you know? I really _didn’t_ offer any other stuff, but he…” She cuts herself off and shakes her head to herself. “And then we were at the Hub, and we were probably going to die, and...there was kissing. And again today. Before...before I found Eric. He was so...aggressive, and I realize now that he was manipulating me…trying to make me feel bad for him.”

“You don’t have to justify it,” he tells her. “You and he were close. I think we could all see that.”

“Yeah, but...he just pushed too hard, you know? Like, before I even found Eric’s body it felt wrong. And then I found Eric’s body, and…”

“You played into it.” She nods, her face pulled into a look of revulsion. “There was footage of you leaving together, holding hands. And I figured that…”

“That I was playing him?”

He nods.

“I was so afraid, _all day_ I was so afraid. It was almost better once it was all out in the open...at least he didn’t keep kissing me.” She looks queasy at the thought, and Coulson reaches between them to grasp her hand.

“Okay?” He wants to check in with her before touching her, doesn’t want to inadvertently do something that makes her think of Ward.

She looks at their intertwined hands and then into his eyes, and nods.

“But then...after he knew...he still kept saying he cared about me. He said he cared about me while he handcuffed me. He said he wanted to be with me while he _locked me up_. I was so afraid he was going to…”

He’s glad she doesn’t say it, glad that his horror at the idea of rape — at the idea of Skye being raped — isn’t something that she’ll have to deal with. He hates the idea that he might do something to inadvertently make her feel bad for having been a potential victim. For having been a victim in the past. For being a survivor.

“You made it through,” he tells her, squeezing her hand. “You left us a message, and you stayed alive. You kept it together when most people would have fallen apart. You’re remarkable, Skye.”

He’s startled when she starts sobbing, then, loud and shaking and uncontrolled.

Slowly, he reaches out and wraps an arm around her shoulders, moving carefully and consciously trying to be nonthreatening. She falls into his embrace easily and he holds her to his chest as she sobs.

“You’re okay,” he whispers. “You did well. It’s going to be okay.” The stream of quiet reassurance flows out of him as he holds her, his own freakout mitigated by her closeness.

After a few minutes, her sobs die down to quiet shudders, but neither makes a move to separate.

“I just wanted to see you,” she tells him, once her tears have dried and her voice sounds normal. “Just one more time. I...I was _so sure_ I was going to die, and I just wanted to see you. And then you were there, and…”

He hugs her tighter and rocks slightly, unaware of the few tears that have fallen down his own cheeks. He’s made aware, though, when she pulls back and cups his face in her hands, wiping them off.

“Are _you_ okay?”

His heart breaks a little that she can even ask him that question after the day she’s had, but he nods.

“Yes. Much better now.”

She smiles at that, examining his face closely. 

"Me, too," she tells him. "So much better." 

And then she kisses him.

It’s soft, just her lips barely pressed to his, but it’s enough to make him instantly crave more. She repeats the motion several times, letting her lips linger over his for longer each time. 

When she pulls back, their eyes meet, and she looks suddenly hesitant.

“Was that okay?”

He makes a strangled groan in his throat because it was at once very okay and very not okay.

“Skye.”

She kisses him harder, then, and he definitely allows it. Her fingers cup his cheeks and she fully controls the pace of the kiss, but he participates enthusiastically, parting his lips against hers and slipping his tongue along hers as she wordlessly directs him.

He’s not sure whether he’s doing whatever will make Skye comfortable or enjoying whatever Skye will give him. Whichever it is, he ignores his desire to drag her onto his lap and instead keeps his hands firmly at his sides, mindful of her description of Ward as too aggressive.

“Tell me you’ve been wanting this,” she whispers.

“You know I have.”

“I thought you had. But I wasn’t sure.”

“I _have_ ,” he promises.

“So have I. I didn’t think you would.” There’s a note of hesitance in her voice that is completely undermined by the fact that she climbs over him, straddling his lap, before kissing him again.

Her tongue softly brushes the roof of his mouth behind his teeth, which creates a ticklish feeling that zings down his spine. He has to gather the bedspread in his fists to keep from grabbing her hips and pulling her against him. Fortunately, Skye seems to be of a mind with him, as her hips begin to grind against his — she kisses with her whole body, which he really, really likes.

He moans into her mouth when she hits an especially perfect angle, and he can feel her lips curve against his as she does it again.

Unfortunately, it's around then that a crashing sensation in his chest alerts him to the fact that this isn't right.

“Skye. This is a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“The situation,” he answers. "Today."

“This,” she gestures between them and slides her body against his in a way that’s almost blindingly good, “isn’t because of today. I’ve wanted you forever; you have to have known that.”

He groans because her words are just so _exactly_ what he wants to hear, but he resists when she leans in to kiss him again.

“Right now, everything is about today. And I can’t…”

“I don’t need you to protect me.”

“What if I’m protecting me?” The words sound so much more pathetic than he intended, and his eyes slam shut. He feels her hands frame his face, again, soft and gentle on his cheeks.

“Why would you need to protect yourself from me?”

He opens his eyes at the question, locks gazes with Skye, and watches her expression soften as her hands keep stroking his face. She must be able to tell, he thinks, that he’s fallen hopelessly in love with her somewhere along the way, maybe that he’s been hopelessly in love with her since the day they met. And he can’t start something with her when she’s emotionally vulnerable, when she’s coming off of what has happened between her and Ward. Not just for her, but for his own damaged heart. Whatever they start, or whatever they have already been starting, he needs it to be real.

“Okay.” She nods once. “This can wait, okay? Not forever, but until we can talk.” Her smile is sweet, and she leans in to place a soft kiss on his forehead. “We have a lot to say to each other, and maybe this isn’t the best time for it.”

He nods in agreement, but can’t help but feel sadly bereft of her lips on his own. Skye must feel the same, though, because she leans forward and places another soft kiss on his lips.

“Just one more,” she murmurs against his mouth, and he groans his approval. Her hands hold his face still as she deepens the kiss, her whole body moving on top of him again as she throws herself into it. 

“Skye,” he grunts her name, losing control of his hands enough that he plants them firmly on her thighs, encouraging the rocking motions she’s making with her hips. He’s sliding them up her legs, almost grasping her butt as he thrusts back up against her, when his ringtone startles them.

Skye breaks apart from him first and slides down a little, allowing him access to his pocket. But once he fishes the phone out, he holds it in his hand like a foreign object, brain still cloudy with the taste and feel of Skye. It's her quiet laughter that calls him out of it, but not before she grasps the phone from his palm and accepts the call, holding it to his ear.

“Coulson.” He takes the phone from her hand, and Skye's fingers trace shapes on his chest as he talks.

“There are reports of a flying red convertible in downtown LA,” Simmons tells him, and he and Skye both choke out a laugh.

“There was a lot more falling than flying, actually,” he corrects.

“But you’re safe, right? And you have Skye?”

“Yes. Can you get Fitz to access Lola’s GPS and have Trip come get us?”

“Yes, sir.”

He hangs up the phone, sets it next to himself on the bed, and looks back at Skye, who is still straddling him.

He wants to reach up and kiss her, just once, but is uncomfortable being the aggressor.

She seems to get it, though, and leans forward to kiss him softly, a few soft pecks on his lips.

“We’ll talk later?”

“Yes,” he answers, very seriously.

She nods, and grins at him before stroking his face once more.

“Thank you for rescuing me.”

“I was just returning the favor,” he reminds her, and she smiles widely at him.

“So we’re even then.”

“Even.”

They kiss on it.

 


	21. Rag Tag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Fitz gets called out for being a tool of rape culture (dammit, Fitz, shape up) and Coulson and Skye makeout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scenes are just before and just after the discovery that Garrett and Ward are in Cuba. Dialogue in the first half of the first scene from the show. (The first scene is something I needed to happen for my own sanity -- both Fitz getting called out so he can grow up, and Coulson standing up for Skye.)

“How do we know Garrett didn’t do that to Ward, too? Maybe he’s been programmed!”

Coulson keeps his eyes on the page in front of him, avoids looking over at Fitz. Part of him knows that this is what Fitz needs to believe right now, doesn’t want to take it away from the boy, but he’s also frustrated with the constant string of excuses.

“Fitz,” Simmons’s voice sounds placating but serious. “When are you going to stop clinging to the idea that Ward’s the victim and not the perpetrator?”

“When I see something that tells me I shouldn’t with my own two eyes! We don’t know all the facts.” Fitz is angry, but Coulson finds himself getting angrier, and when he hears Skye’s voice, he’s impressed that _she_ doesn’t sound more angry.

“You want a fact Fitz? Ward _murders_ people.” The whole table is silent, and he’s certain that everyone is picturing Eric Koenig’s body. “I should have let Mike finish him when I had the chance.” She huffs out a breath. “I’m stupid and weak.”

“You weren’t weak,” Coulson cuts her off. “You had compassion. That’s harder.” He can’t imagine the guilt Skye would feel if she had allowed Ward to be killed — would give most anything to keep her from ever having to deal with the guilt of taking a life. She doesn’t look like she believes him, though. “We’ll find him,” he promises.

“Pizza delivery for Pablo Jimenez.”

It takes him a moment to remember that that’s him, and when he returns to the table with pizzas, she’s missing.

“Where did Skye go?”

May tilts her head towards her hotel room, and Coulson nods, looking that way.

“You upset her,” Simmons accuses Fitz quietly as Coulson lays out the pizzas.

“What did I do to upset her?”

“ _Skye_ was one of Ward’s victims,” Trip cuts in, frowning. “So maybe don’t go around trying to tell her what a great guy Ward is. She’s seen a hell of a lot more of him than you have, and if she says he’s evil, then he’s evil.”

“But that doesn’t change the fact that Ward could be -”

“Fitz!” Simmons cuts him off. “Listen to yourself! Your friend was _kidnapped_ and you’re more concerned about the man who kidnapped her.”

“Well _Ward_ is supposed to be our friend, too. We’re not supposed to leave behind -”

“Enough.” Coulson cuts off the conversation. “This isn’t helpful. Fitz, you can believe whatever you need to, but you are _not_ to talk about this in front of Skye any more.”

“I just -”

“Fitz. Not. Helpful.” Coulson glares at him until the younger man seems settled. “I’d also like to make it clear that _I_ am one of Ward’s victims. He was not pulling his shots when Skye and I were trying to get off the Bus. He very nearly killed us both.”

“Sir, I -”

“That means that I am also not interested in hearing any of your theories exonerating Ward.”

Fitz nods once, and looks finally silenced.

“We need to eat, and we need to find Ward and Garrett, okay? Let’s stick to the basics for the time being.”

Everyone nods and sets about eating, but the quiet is far from comfortable.

“Hey, you know, sir, you and May did a pretty good impression of Fitz and Simmons,” Trip says loudly.

“What?”/“Oh, they did _not_ ,” FitzSimmons respond in unison. And like that the awkward silence is broken as FitzSimmons tear apart the performance he and May put on. Coulson glances over at Trip thankfully, and gets a respectful nod in return.

He’s contemplating going to check on Skye when May stands up with an extra can and meets his eyes meaningfully. He nods because, he thinks, May is probably the person best qualified to say whatever Skye needs to hear right now.

 

—

 

“Are you okay?” He asks her later, when he’s locked them in his makeshift office on the plane, which is headed to Cuba. The space is purely utilitarian — a desk, a couple of chairs, and all the files they collected from CyberTek — but it's better than nothing. They’re supposed to be strategizing, but this is important, too.

“Yes,” she answers, as though there’s no reason she wouldn’t be. She pauses, though, and looks him over closely. “Are you?”

He’s not sure what the answer to that question is, keeps thinking back to the video May showed him that he _needs_ to share with Skye, and apparently his confusion speaks a very loud ‘no.’

“Hey, what’s wrong?” She comes right into his personal space, though lately his personal space feels more like Skye’s space anyways, and touches his shoulders.

Instead of answering, he engulfs her in a hug, gripping her to his chest too hard. She doesn’t seem to mind, though, and manages to press her body against his even harder. When he gathers the strength to let her go, she doesn’t step back, just looks up into his face.

“What is it?”

“Now’s not the time,” he answers her.

“Later then?”

“Yes,” he nods. “Later.”

“We’ve got a lot to talk about later, don’t we?” She smiles coyly as she says it, but he thinks it’s also a serious reminder.

“Soon,” he promises.

“I thought you were going to come to my room last night, so we could start talking about some of these things.” She sounds vaguely hurt, and he swallows.

“May showed up, and…”

“And there’s more of that stuff we should wait to discuss?”

“You know it’s not that I don’t want to tell you, right?”

She narrows her eyes at him, and he flushes under the scrutiny.

“There _is_ something you don’t want to tell me, though.”

“Only because it’s...big. Bad.”

“About Project TAHITI?”

He nods once, and she must be able to read the real fear in his eyes because she manages to get even closer to him. Her eyes turn from suspicious to understanding in half a second, and she rubs his shoulders.

“It’s okay, AC. We can wait to talk about it.”

“I promise Skye, we _will_ talk about it. And the...other thing, too.”

“The _other_ thing?” She teases him, lightening the mood substantially. “You mean how I'm pretty sure we love each other? That thing?”

Her words put a stupid smile on his face, and he’s struck with the sudden longing to kiss her again, fearful that he won’t _get_ to kiss her again if he doesn’t do it now, but he restrains himself.

Skye, however, is Skye, and can be counted on to dive in head first.

She presses her hands into the tops of his shoulders as she reaches her mouth to his, and her lips are immediately hungry. She nips at him, teeth sinking into his lower lip before she sucks it into her mouth and smooths her tongue over it. Coulson grasps her hips, pulling her against him as he responds. Their lips part together, tongues sliding across each other and heating up almost too fast. The constant pressure of her hands pushing into the tops of his shoulders makes it feel like she wants to climb him.

The kiss feels like a promise, like the beginning of a race towards a destination he would very much like to get to, and he responds almost unthinkingly. His hands slide upwards along her torso, feeling every dip and curve of her as they reach towards her breasts. Skye moans against his lips and thrusts her chest forward, almost literally begging for his touch, and he has a sudden flash of how this will go — willpower lost, rutting against the wall or maybe the desk.

And it’s not that the image doesn’t hold a great deal of appeal, but it’s not what he wants _right now_. It’s not what he wants for their first time together. He’s aware of the fact that he’s a bit old fashioned — people have been telling him since he was a teenager — but first times hold significance for him; he likes to start a sexual relationship as he plans for it to go, and he wants a great deal more from Skye than a quickie in this makeshift temporary office.

So he pulls back, much to Skye’s vocal disappointment. Even her sad moans utterly charm him, and he smiles at her.

"Slower," he whispers, meeting her eyes as she nods.

Coulson brings up his right hand to cup the side of her face, stroking her cheek as he drags his thumb across her lips. Skye lets her neck go soft, leaning the weight of her head in his palm for a moment before he slides his hand down so that his fingers curve around her neck and his thumb presses gently against the side her jaw. He leans forward and kisses her again, slowly but deeply, parted lips and soft tongues moving together with an intensity that promises so much more than the end of a race.

Skye almost sags against him, her body collapsing into his, and he grips her hip to keep her upright, pressing their torsos tightly together.

“Okay?” He breathes the question against her lips, wanting to be sure that he’s not pushing too hard, and Skye sighs into his mouth.

“ _God_ yes.”

He smirks at that, and pulls back enough to look at her flushed face.

“Jesus, AC,” she whispers. “Do you even _know_ what you’re doing to me?”

“Same thing you’re doing to me,” he promises, earning a laugh.

“No. You’re still standing,” she points out, though she punctuates her point by sliding one of her legs between his and very purposefully rubbing up against his groin. His hand on her hip tightens in response, and he grunts against her face as he pulls her back towards him with the hand on her neck. As their lips meet again, the kiss gets harder and sloppier, and Coulson feels his control teetering.

“We need to stop,” he tells her, voice gruff with desire, “or I’m going to have you on the desk.”

“Maybe I’m going to have _you_ on the desk,” she replies, slipping her mouth down his neck to nip at the skin just above his collar. The image her words conjure — pushing off all of the paperwork so Skye can ride him to completion — makes his cock throb where it’s still pressed against her, and her lips on his neck make his whole body tingle.

“Not our first time,” he tells her. The words sound more pleading than he intends, but she pulls back from him and shoots him a soft smile.

“You’re right.” She leaves off by placing a series of pecks against his mouth, as though she's weaning them off of the feeling, before pulling herself together with an ease that frustrates him because all he can do for the time being is move to sit down behind the desk, where the effects of her kisses are hidden.

He clears his throat, looking for a change in conversation topic, and Skye takes pity on him.

“Let me show you what my trojan horse is going to do? If I can get access to their system, it _will_ be a game-changer.”

She sits down in the only other chair in the small office space and starts to share the information on her tablet.

“You could communicate with Mr. Peterson?”

“I’m pretty sure,” she answers, and just like that they they slide into work mode, planning out the phases of their assault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that due to the fact that I apparently can't write non-explicit Skoulson sex, I'm going to raise the rating of this story to "E" when I post the last chapter in the next day or so.


	22. The Beginning of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Coulson and Skye finally smash their stupid sexy bodies together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scene is post-Fury meeting, pre-landing at the Playground. (Assumption here is that Coulson's very first priority after Fury's departure is to talk to Skye...because when it comes to Coulson's behavior in the last two episodes, I can't help but think of this story as sort of Coulson rehab, right?)
> 
> The good news is that I can definitely write 35,000 words in less than a month. (That's almost a dissertation!) The bad news is that the words apparently have to be about Skye and Coulson. (That's *not* almost a dissertation!) Basically, THESE TWO ARE KILLING ME, and the photoshoots and pictures and interviews from SDCC are NOT HELPING. I should sue for lost productivity.

He sits behind his desk, looking on with a grim face as Skye watches the video May brought. When the it ends, she looks up at him with palpable anger. Coulson braces himself, but is surprised when her anger is still directed at Fury and SHIELD, rather than him.

“They erased your memories of this? They tampered with your memories of _before_ you were killed?”

“The assumption was that I couldn’t know anything about it.” He’s defending them, but the truth is that without Nick Fury to play to, he’s more uncomfortable, more angry.

“Are you okay?”

He’s upset that she’s asking him that question;  _she_ should be angry at him. Skye more than anyone should be angry because he’s disappointed her and because he’s made this her problem, too.

It’s like she can see the thoughts in his face, and she rolls her eyes.

“I’m not going to rage at you. If that’s what you’re looking for, you’re going to have to get it elsewhere.”

“I pumped you full of this drug." He gestures at the computer, at himself. "I endangered your life, and it was selfish.”

"I'm not going to be angry that you saved my life," she tells him, shrugging like it's obvious. "And it wasn't  _selfish._ " She frowns at him. 

"You couldn't consent to treatment! Even before I knew it was alien, I knew there was something...not right."

"But you _know_ me, AC," she says. "Do you think I would  _ever_ choose to die when you could offer me a chance to live?"

The answer is 'no.' A loud and resounding 'no.' 

"I might have just killed you a different way. I might have dragged you down a very bad path."

"Then we'll handle it together." Her gaze is sharp, and he nods once in agreement. They  _will_ handle it together. "Besides, we've both been fine, right?" 

“So far, yes. But I think when we meet up with Simmons, we need to talk to her. We need both her and May...”

“Making sure we don’t go insane?” She says it like a joke, but there’s very real fear in her eyes. He thinks it probably mirrors his own. 

There's nothing to be done for it, though, beyond knowing that they'll handle it together...that they'll have support.

"You should be angry." 

"And  _you_ should stop telling me how to feel." Skye glares at him, and he lowers his eyes to his desk. "Besides, what good would it do me to be angry? What good would it do me to worry?"

Coulson swallows and looks up at her. Despite all of his fears, he knew that this conversation would go this way — Skye has no room for anger, no patience for his self-recriminations. 

“I’m so sorry, Skye,” he whispers.

“I wish you wouldn’t be. We’re both victims here.” 

"You're a victim here. I...I tortured people," he corrects. "Apparently I went to work every day and I watched people lose their minds."

"And you tried to stop it."

“Clearly not hard enough. You should hate me. I did those things. I'm a bad person.” That's what it is; that's what's been eating at him. He wants to believe that he's  _good_ , as good as Skye, and here's video proof that he is not.

"I don't believe that."

He narrows his eyes at her, incredulous at her defense of what she should think indefensible. 

"We both know that you were doing this for a good cause. Something you believed in. You wanted to save the world."

"A good cause doesn't justify doing bad things," he cuts in. 

"No, it doesn't," she agrees. "But I also believe that you stopped those experiments because you knew that."

"Too late, though. And...I stayed with SHIELD even though I knew what they had done. Maybe even though I knew they hadn't really shut down the project." 

"I didn't know you before," she says, and he thinks to himself that he is  _so glad_ that she didn't, _so glad_ that they met when they did, "but you keep talking about how you've changed."

"I have," he agrees.

"Do you think you would do this? Work on a project you thought was wrong because you had orders?"

"No," he answers.

"I don't either. You do what's right, not what someone tells you to do." 

"It's because of you," he tells her, his voice entirely too soft. "It's because I met you."

"No it's not," she scoffs. "I wouldn't love you if you weren't a good man deep down."

His eyes close at her words, and he swallows down a burst of emotion that threatens to escape.

"I think I made some bad choices before," he says.

"And here you are with a second chance to make better ones." Skye smiles at him, and a knot in his chest loosens. He's been trying, trying to make the right choices every day.

"Second chance, huh?" 

"Yeah," she answers, standing up from her chair and walking the short path around his desk. "And maybe instead of using it up being afraid and angry about things you can't control, you could enjoy it?" 

Skye leans down and cups his face in her hands, kisses him softly.

"There are some things I've enjoyed a lot," he whispers against her mouth, earning a smile.

“Me, too,” she answers, kissing him again before grasping his hands to pull him out of his chair and to the couch on his far wall. “We’ve both come really close to dying, and I’m thinking we should make the most out of the being alive part.”

He leans forward to kiss her, but Skye stops him with a hand on his chest.

“We’re supposed to have a talk, remember?”

Coulson nods once, raking his eyes over her face. She’s practically smirking, telegraphing how much she thinks this conversation is a formality. He’s never been one to lay himself out, fully exposed, but it doesn’t seem so hard right now.

“I’m in love with you,” he offers. And even though he’s sure that Skye already knew it, the words seem to make her glow.

“I’m really glad it’s not just me,” she answers. Coulson narrows his eyes at her, and she laughs. “ _I_ already said it.”

He grins then, sure he looks absolutely stupid, but Skye is such a ray of light, making all the darkness that surrounds them feel less insurmountable.

“This is real.” It’s part statement, part question, and she laughs.

“Yeah, AC. This is real.” She kisses him, lips soft and warm against his.

“Technically,” he murmurs into her mouth. “It’s DC, now.”

“I am _not_ calling you that,” she scoffs, jokingly, but then she pulls back. Her face is serious, and she strokes his cheek. “You have to stay AC, you know. You can’t...change.”

He nods, understanding perfectly what she’s saying — he can’t become Director Fury, can’t become someone who would fail to remember the value of individual human lives within the big picture.

“I’ll have you here to help me remember that, right?”

“Always, AC,” she promises.

"Phil," he offers, not sure why except that it occurs to him that she doesn't ever call him that. She hasn't, might not feel free to.

"Ooh, I finally earn the right to call you Phil?" Her tone is playful, but he thinks there's an undercurrent of hurt.

"I thought I had to keep a line between us," he half-explains. 

"And now you don't?"

"Now I know I'm better if I don't," he admits to her, hoping she understands how important she is to him, not as a lover — although  _yes_ that, too — but as part of his team, as his partner. 

"Do you like Phil better than AC?"

"I like whatever you want to call me."

Skye smiles at that, like she understands how important she is to him, and then she kisses him again. The soft playful kisses from a moment ago become harder and more demanding as they move towards each other on the couch. His hands land on her hips, tugging her towards his lap, but she resists, pulling her lips away from his.

“Bedroom,” she whispers, and the two syllables, the promise made in those two syllables, makes him shiver.

He nods, not sure he can actually speak. Skye rises off the couch first and fists her hand in his tie, tugging slightly until he rises with her. She pulls him forward and kisses him quickly, nipping at his lower lip, before walking backwards towards his bedroom space, using the tie as a lead to keep his mouth attached to hers. This is definitely a thing for him — sexually aggressive women who know _exactly_   what they want — and it makes his whole body tingle with anticipation. She drops the tie when they’re standing by his bed, smoothing it down his chest.

“That was kind of hot,” she admits, almost blushing as she fingers the fabric.

“Yes,” he agrees, a little too adamantly and much to Skye’s amusement. He kisses her this time, running his hands down her torso to take off her shirt.

Skye’s attempts to strip him get in the way, though, and he has to take his hands off of her to let her slip his jacket off his shoulders. He scrunches his eyes closed at the thought that she’s going to let it fall to the floor — though at the moment, he is more than willing to sacrifice the jacket — but she tosses it over the back of his chair, instead, as she smirks knowingly.

She meets his gaze as she starts on his tie, using it to reel him in for a fast kiss before she loosens the knot and drags it over his head. His eyes follow the trajectory of his tie as she tosses it onto the chair, and then he kisses her again as he starts to work her shirt upwards, running his fingers up her sides as his tongue explores the roof of her mouth. When his hands are resting over her bra-covered breasts, her shirt bunched above them, he pauses, partly to feel out the softness of her and partly because he doesn't want to stop kissing her for long enough to pull the shirt over her head.

They kiss like that, Skye's hands running over his torso and his cupping her breasts over her bra, until Skye backs away enough to pull her shirt over her head and drop it on the floor. Moving quickly, her hands attack the buttons at his shirt collar, and he joins in by untucking his shirts and starting to work on the bottom buttons, letting his hands fall away when their fingers meet in the middle.

As Skye's hands push the shirt off of his shoulders and then slip under the bottom of his undershirt, he tugs her body towards his, bringing their lips back together. Her fingers trace through the hair around his navel as they kiss, making his abdominals tighten at the near-ticklish feeling.

“You wear too many clothes, AC,” she pants against mouth, and he breathes out a short laugh. As her fingers run across the skin under his shirt, moving from his belly to his back, he winds his hands around her back to unhook her bra, and when she pulls back to tear his shirt over his head, the bra falls down her arms.

They pause, staring at each other’s topless bodies, and Coulson swallows reflexively at the sight of her bare breasts and smooth, taut skin, down to the scars on her abdomen. They’re less imperfections and more a part of her — part of what makes her the woman he’s fallen in love with, an external reminder of her strength and resiliancy. He has a flash of doubt about his own body, about what must look like to her, but it’s erased when she steps forward and kisses him again, rubbing her bare chest against his in a way that feels too good.

He’s a little surprised when all four of their hands land at the button of her jeans, but it means that they’re sliding her jeans and panties down her hips within seconds. Before her boots can become a problem, he guides her back to sit on the end of the bed and falls to his knees in front of her, pulling them off along with her socks. She leans back on her hands and watches him work, and when he finally has her completely naked, he looks up at her in awe.

Coulson thinks about telling her that she’s beautiful, that she is, in fact, the most desirable woman he’s ever laid eyes on. It’s true — completely true, even if it has less to do with her physical body and more to do with who she is underneath it — but any way he puts the words together sounds hackneyed in his own head, so he just leans forward and places kisses up her legs, letting his lips speak to her in a different way.

“Scoot up?” It’s a request, a question, and she nods and slides herself back, watching as he crawls up the bed after her. He settles between her legs, pressing his clothed hips against her naked ones and kissing her again. Quickly, though, he grows impatient and moves his lips to her ear and then her neck, pauses to lavish attention on her breasts, and then presses kisses down low on her belly. Her hand, running through his hair as though looking for enough to grab onto, stops him as he slides his tongue down her pubic mound.

“You really don’t have to do that,” she says. “It’s sort of… I mean, I do better with penetration.”

She seems only minimally embarrassed at telling him that, and he nods his understanding as he looks up at her from between her legs. But instead of crawling up her body as she clearly expects, he parts her legs further and so he can watch as he drags a finger down through slick folds to press inside of her. She’s already so wet, so ready for more, and one finger quickly becomes two. She groans at the penetration and lets her knees fall open, tilting her pelvis so that he's hitting right where she wants it. Coulson starts to move his fingers, quickly catching onto the hard thrusting motions that seem to work best for her.

Skye is loud underneath him, staccato bursts of panted breath breaking up a chorus of two-note glissando moans that get faster and higher and closer together as he sets a pounding rhythm with his fingers. He keeps it up until he's working her through the spasms of her orgasm, her hips snapping up against his hand as her throat seems to get too tight to make any noise at all. It is one of the most beautiful things he’s ever seen, her body splayed open, not hiding anything, so trusting and responsive. His fingers slip out of her as she catches her breath, and he lays his cheek on her inner thigh, still watching.

“Shit, AC,” she sighs, and he raises an eyebrow at her as she pants. “Come up here,” she orders him, but he shakes his head.

“Not yet.”

He pushes his fingers back inside of her, watching her eyes roll back in her head before he sets about a more gentle movement, pressing the pads of his fingers upwards and rubbing instead of thrusting. She hums quietly, letting herself get caught back up in it, and he leans forward to run his pointed tongue in a figure eight above his fingers.

“May I?” He makes it a question, doesn't want to guilt her into it if she just doesn't want it, but he also wants to eat her out more than he can remember wanting anything.

"Yeah," she answers on a moaned exhale. "Just don't stop..." He cuts off the rest of her request by crooking his fingers inside of her, increasing the pressure; she groans and throws her head back. 

Coulson quickly sets his tongue to pressing tight, fast circles against her, moving in counterpoint to his fingers. He'd like to play with her more — to take his time and try touching her and tasting her every way possible — but Skye's verbal directions and the hand sliding through his short hair, holding him in place, have made her desires crystal clear.

And, really, that is  _absolutely_ a thing for him.

“Yes, that’s… God… God, AC...” She’s a talker like this, too. Or, at least she’ s loud, babbling words. He likes that. Every groan, every time she calls his name — or God’s — makes him harder, until he’s throbbing, his erection pressed almost painfully against his zipper.

He pushes his his tongue against her harder and moves his fingers faster until she comes apart against him again. She’s louder this time, nearly sobbing, and its deeply satisfying to hear, to taste, to feel. When he slides his fingers out of her, she’s shaking, and he takes his time lapping at her before pulling back.

Coulson wipes a hand across his mouth as he rises up between her legs, and watches as she shakes on the bed.

“Holy fuck,” she whispers, finally opening her eyes and meeting his. “Jesus. That was…”

“Very hot,” he tells her.

She laughs at that and curls a hand behind his neck, pulling him up the bed over her. Their lips meet as her hand slides easily down to cup him through his pants, rubbing his shaft through the fabric. He groans into their kiss, but pulls away.

“You really shouldn’t.” He’s too earnest, and she smirks, but is careful not to touch him as she undoes his belt and his zipper.

When her hand closes around the bare length of him, just squeezing firmly, his eyes slam shut and he has to hold himself rigidly to keep from shaking. It’s the first time someone has touched him like this since well before he died. The first time since his memories were tampered with, the first time since he got some semblance of a new start, and it’s so close to being too much that he misses what she says to him.

“I said lie down,” she orders him, almost impatiently. He nods and lets himself collapse onto his back on the bed as Skye climbs over him. She makes quick work of his pants and boxers, sliding them down and his shoes and socks off with little fanfare, before she curls into his side and wraps her hand back around him. Every touch makes him feel on edge, like overexposed nerves, and he doesn’t see how this will be anything but too quick.

“I haven’t done this in...a long time,” he tells her, sounding apologetic.

“You’re doing really well so far,” she promises him as she twists her hand, making him see stars. As her hand works over him, her lips kiss a soft trail across chest, moving over his scar and then down his belly.

"Don't come," she whispers, right before seemingly setting herself to making him do just that. He clenches his teeth as her hand speeds up, sucking in lungfulls of air in an attempt to stay in command of himself. 

Right as he thinks she’s going to force him to fall over the edge, she pulls her hand away, leaving him thrusting his hips up into the air. He groans and tries to take deep breaths, recapturing his control as her lips continue slipping down his stomach. The feel of her hot breath near the base of his erection is maddening, and he stays poised in tense anticipation until her lips close over the head.

“Skye,” he whispers her name repeatedly as she moves over him, the wet heat of her mouth so good that it's almost unbearable. It takes longer, this time, but again she brings him up to the edge before backing off, leaving him a trembling, shaking mess on the bed.

“You okay, AC?”

“Yes,” he promises, even as his head shakes back and forth.

She sits up, and they lock eyes before she slides on top of him, straddling his hips.

There’s a conversation that should happen here, but they both know they’re clean and they both know that all female field agents get Depo injections, so the conversation is reduced to Skye raising her eyebrows questioningly as she holds herself over him, teasing him with the heat between her thighs.

“Okay?”

“Yes,” he promises again, promises it repeatedly as she sinks down over him.

“ _God_ ,” she groans when he’s seated fully inside of her, and he mirrors the sound, grateful for the fact that in this position all he’ll have to do is hold off his own orgasm. In his current circumstances, he’s not sure he’s up for much more.

As Skye begins to move, though, a slow rocking of her hips over him, it’s easy to think about her instead of himself. He grips her thighs and moves with her, rocking up as she rocks down, enraptured by every flash of emotion that passes over her face.

“Don’t stop,” she grunts at him as her pace increases, and he increases in point with her, watching her eyes slip closed and her breasts bounce above him. As she gets closer, though, it’s Skye who loses her rhythm, letting herself go nearly limp as he thrusts up into her. “Don’t stop,” she begs again, repeating the plea as he feels her clench around him. He slides his hands to her hips and holds her to him, continuing to move beneath her as she falls apart.

Skye collapses on top of him and takes a shuddering breath before opening her eyes and kissing him, softly at first and then harder as he thrusts up into her again. Together, they roll over, his cock still hard inside of her, her tongue in his mouth. She hitches her legs up his thighs, wrapping them around his back, and he takes the cue to start thrusting.

His own orgasm feels close and also torturously far away, and if he has a moment of shame over the fact that he’s purely chasing his own release, it is mitigated by the fact that Skye is active underneath him, moving her hips so that each thrust hits where she needs it.

In the end, it’s Skye coming again that pulls him over the edge, her cries into his mouth and her breasts pushed into his chest and her thighs pressed into his sides and her muscles contracting around him. He loses any ability to kiss her, instead just buries his face in her neck as he pulses inside of her in perhaps the most blindly intense orgasm of his life. He groans into her neck, kissing the skin there as his hips stutter to a slow stop.

Skye sighs beneath him as she lets her legs fall to the bed, but he can’t seem to pull his face out of her neck — he’s almost afraid that he’s going to cry.

It takes him a few minutes to realize that he’s probably crushing her, so Coulson rolls onto his back, gratified when Skye immediately curls into his side, her hand resting protectively over his heart.

“So, that was pretty great,” she says, conversationally, after a few minutes of lying with her head on his shoulder.

Coulson’s abdomen contracts in near-laughter, and he nods.

“Yeah.”

He runs a hand down her naked back and sighs contentedly. He is not the same Phil Coulson that appeared in that video; he is a very different man, now. Granted, being a very different man apparently comes with scary possible side effects and now the pressure of rebuilding SHIELD, but it also comes with the potential for _this_. 

“I can hear you thinking,” Skye whispers, though her eyes are closed.

“Good things,” he promises.

“I like good things,” she mumbles, nuzzling her face into his shoulder. 

“Me, too.” 

 


End file.
